Having checked and read forum posts on this subject before taking the plunge of setting up Domain Hosting Only Without Registration, I thought I would publicise my complete and straightforward success, to encourage others -- since normally people only post problems and difficulties, so successes go silent and unremarked.
I retained the Domain Registration with my existing company, Easily:
http://easily.co.uk. PlusNet are hosting the DNS, webspace and e-mails.
At 09:15 this morning I changed the DNS servers for my .org.uk domain to point to PlusNet's DNS servers using the Domain Management facility of my Registration agent / TAG Holder Easily. The changes were actioned immediately, verified by checking my Nominet Registration entry using WHOIS.
At 09:30 I raised a Manual Domain Hosting ticket with PlusNet using the Contact Us Wizard for Manual/DNS-Only Hosting.
These are the words I used in the text box of the wizard:
This is a Domain Hosting Only request for:
thechurchinbinleywoods.org.uk
I wish the existing TAG holder to remain as such, and require "Domain Hosting Only" from PlusNet. Please DO NOT transfer the TAG.
The name server addresses of the domain are pointing at the FORCE9 DNS servers, as verified by WHOIS.
As per your instructions, I hereby raise a Contact Us query requesting that you enable the above domain on your DNS servers, and my webspace and my e-mail account.
At 11:26 PlusNet actioned the ticket.
From that time the domain was available to administer in the PlusNet Domains Panel. This enabled me to specify the subdirectory under /htdocs where I wanted the Domain to point.
Two hours later the DNS for
www.thechurchinbinleywoods.org.uk was live and pointing at my webspace, and e-mails were being routed to my PlusNet e-mail account.
However, the domain was still pointing at the root of my webspace and not at the subdirectory I had set (which was a pity, really). Another 2 hours later the Domains Panel setting took effect, and the transfer was complete - 6 hours from start to finish, and as smooth as it could have been.
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I do have some comments:
(1) The "Help" and Information is unclear and muddled. The route through to the actual Wizard for Hosting-Only-Without-Registration is tortuous and counter-intuitive. You have to travel along the Hosting-With-Registration path a fair way before the escape route to Without-Registration is provided.
(2) I wanted to re-write "native" URLs so that the proper Domain name always shows in the browser. I also discovered that
domain.org.uk points at my webspace as well as
www.domain.org.uk. I wanted to rewrite the "bare" domain URL so that the "www" is always present.
This is my .htaccess file, in the /htdocs directory:
# Re-write native (js2js) cibw and CiBW address with the cibw domain name:
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www\.js2js\.plus\.com [NC]
RewriteRule ^cibw/(.*)
http://www.thechurchinbinleywoods.org.uk/$1 [NC,R=permanent]
# Put the www in front of bare churchinbinleywoods:
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^thechurchinbinleywoods\.org\.uk [NC]
RewriteBase /cibw
RewriteRule /(.*)
http://www.thechurchinbinleywoods.org.uk$1 [R=permanent]
There was a certain amount of trial and error in the second part determining the RewriteBase, and the omission of a / in the RewriteRule between the .uk and the $1.
(3) I'd already made the other bit of necessary preparation in the website itself. Before the change, while it was still using the "native" URL, the root directory of the website was /cibw/. So any links that I wanted to be absolute rather than relative to the page started with /cibw/.... But with the new Domain, the root directory of the website is just / . I used some JavaScript in the <head> of each page to set the root directory dependent on the URL used to display the web page:
if (location.host.toLowerCase() == "
www.thechurchinbinleywoods.org.uk") {
var siteroot = "";
}
else {
var siteroot = "/cibw";
}
//Open a link that is fully-qualified relative to the site root:
function rlink(link) {
window.location = siteroot + link
}
And then every absolute link has to be made either using the function rlink() or by using document.write within JavaScript to write a link using the siteroot variable. rlink() is easier to code, but document.write is more user-friendly. In fact I only use non-relative links for the static navigation that has to work from every page regardless of how deep it is in the structure.
Successful transfer-in for DNS Domain Hosting Only