My Linode IP is shared with a domain name that's not mine
Hi all,
I’m wondering if anyone can help with pointing me in the right direction here?
I recently had an issue with a website hosted on my Linode server (set up with Linux Ubuntu). It appears that during Google Indexing, I’ve encountered a situation where my domain and someone else’s domain share the same IP address. Unfortunately, their site has been given priority to mine and it’s causing an issue with Google.
I’m pretty sure the issue is a server routing /configuration issue but I’m having trouble identifying where to start.
I have my domain name hosted with a provider and have custom nameservers set to Linode, which seems to work fine.
I have the Linode ns records pointing to my domain name and that seems fine as well.
I have my A/AAAA record hostname as my domain and also www.. and the IP address is correct.
I have a CNAME record added for an external email server and a TEXT Record with a DKIM Record and an SPF Record that I added so that email server would work correctly.
Can anyone see where I may be having an issue with this duplicate IP Address with a different domain name? I’m happy to provide more info, but need some advice first.
Thanks.
Simon.
4 Replies
eruzanski
Linode Staff
✓ Best Answer
Simon… Thanks for those details. I did a bit of investigating and there appears to be two different issues here.
Firstly, it appears that your appemporium.com.au domain is not redirecting requests to https. When I enter http:// in my browser, the website fails to load. However, it works fine when I specify https://. To fix this, you can easily add a Return 301 directive in your Nginx configuration file. Here are some helpful resources with instructions on how to redirect HTTP to HTTPS in Nginx:
Secondly, regarding the concern about the giftupload.com domain pointing to your 172.105.176.113 IP address, I cannot confirm its accuracy. There are a couple of possibilities: 1) The administrator of giftupload.com might have mistakenly entered the DNS entry and has yet to correct it, or 2) giftupload.com was previously hosted on Linode with the 172.105.176.113 IP address, but the service is no longer active, and the DNS entry was not removed.
As long as your Linode web server (172.105.176.113) does not have any configuration for giftupload.com, you shouldn't be overly concerned. The server will simply ignore any requests for that domain.
If you want to address the issue further, you could consider reaching out to the administrator of giftupload.com. The admin email listed in the domain's whois entry is RAY@DISCOUNTDIRECTORY.COM.AU.
-- Eric
eruzanski
Linode Staff
Based on the details you provided, it appears that your DNS configuration is correct. However, it's important to ensure that your virtual host configuration on your Linode server is set up properly. If your system's underlying networking is working fine, then the web server configuration is a great place to start.
Whether you're using Apache or Nginx, review the virtual host configuration files to confirm that your domain is correctly configured and that there are no conflicting settings or overlapping server blocks.
I understand your hesitation to share sensitive information (domain, IP address, etc.) in a public forum, but without that information, troubleshooting becomes more challenging. If the issue persists, I recommend opening a support ticket.
--Eric
Hi Eric,
Thanks for your response.
I'm using Nginx and I can say that I'm certainly no expert when it comes to configuration, but I've checked it and can't see anything obvious that I've missed.
I'm happy to share my IP address and Domain as it's not hard to find publicly anyway.
My IP address is: 172.105.176.113.. And domain is appemporium.com.au
When I do a check on this IP, it shows:
There are 2 domains hosted on this server.
The complete listings are:
appemporium.com.au
giftupload.com
giftupload.com is the domain that I'm unsure about. I wasn't sure if it was possible for someone else to point their domain to my IP address? but a quick search revealed that it could be possible.
Do you have any advice, or am I better off launching a ticket?
Thanks again.
Simon.
Hi Eric,
Thanks again for your reply and your help.
I've fixed up the http redirect issue, so thank you very much for that. It's a big help.
Regarding the IP address issue, I'll reach out to the administrator of the domain as you suggested and see if I have any luck there.
In the case of the issue being associated with an old Linode configuration, my concern is that the domain (giftupload.com) is not being ignored by Goggle crawl bot and is giving it priority over my domain. This means that some of my html pages are not being served by Google.
If this is the case, I suppose the quickest solution will be to setup a new server under a different IP? I'm hoping that may fix this issue?
Thanks again for all your help, I greatly appreciate it.
Simon.