Using your own domain name
From Phanfare Support
If you own your own domain you can create a custom hostname for your Phanfare website. For example, if you own the domain smithfamily.com, your Phanfare album could reside at albums.smithfamily.com, rather than smithfamily.phanfare.com.
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The big picture
Using your own domain name is very simple if you understand how DNS works, know who to talk to and have a company handling your domain name that has great customer support and flexible tools. If any of these things are not true, it can be rocky. This page is here to help.
There are two parts to using your own domain name.
- You must setup a canonical name DNS (CNAME) record in your domain that points a host in your domain to your Phanfare hostname. For example, if you own smithfamily.com and want albums.smithfamily.com to point to your Phanfare account, smithfamily.phanfare.com, you would need a CNAME record that pointed albums.smithfamily.com to smithfamily.phanfare.com. We can guide you but cannot get a CNAME record for you. You legally own your domain, not us.
- You must configure your Phanfare account to know about the custom host name in the domain you control.
Setting up a CNAME record in your domain
The first step is figuring out who controls your domain name records. Typically, whoever owns your DNS resolution controls the domain. This may be your web hosting company, or it may be your original registrar. The quickest way to figure that out is to run a whois query on your domain. There are free online services that will answer that query (http://www.kloth.net/services/nslookup.php). You need to perform query type NS (nameserver) for your domain. If you own smithfamily.com you are doing a NS query for domain smithfamily.com. The response will contain a list of nameservers that answer queries for your domain. The domain name of the nameserver host will usually tell you who handles the DNS. For example, if you do a NS query for whitehouse.gov, you will see the following data:
whitehouse.gov nameserver = ns1-auth.sprintlink.net. whitehouse.gov nameserver = ns2-auth.sprintlink.net. whitehouse.gov nameserver = ns3-auth.sprintlink.net
That tells you that Sprint handles the DNS for the Whitehouse. Note that there are multiple servers to spread out the load and provide fault tolerance.
Once you know who handles your DNS, you need to call their customer service number or send a support request. Note that if you have a higher level relationship, such as a webhosting company, they may be your point of contact even if they outsource your DNS.
The following words are appropriate to get the custom hostname. If my name was John Smith and I owned smithfamily.com:
My name is John Smith. I own the domain smithfamily.com. Please add a
CNAME DNS records as follows:
albums.smithfamily.com --> smithfamily.phanfare.com
Thank you.
John Smith
You can use the online DNS tools (http://www.kloth.net/services/nslookup.php) to query and see if they actually added the name. Do a query of type CNAME on the host. In our example, you would query albums.smithfamily.com.
When it is done, you can configure your Phanfare account to use it.
Pitfalls
Some hosting companies can not setup a CNAME record for you if their software does not allow it. For example, Yahoo Web Hosting does not offer this service. While it is technically possible for them to do it, they can not from their online console, and they are large enough that they are not going to special case your domain.
Note that Yahoo Domains service can setup a custom DNS record for you. So if you downgrade to the cheaper Yahoo Domains service, you can do it from their web console. You would need to use somebody else for webhosting. But if your only need is your online photo and video album from Phanfare, then that is fine. You can save money by using Yahoo domains and Phanfare.
Some companies will tell you that they don't know what a CNAME record is. This can happen if the company that owns your domain is large and the level one support people are poorly trained or non-technical. You need to have your support request escalated in that case. Try saying: Please escalate this support ticket to level 2.
Some companies will tell you that they created a CNAME record when in fact they have created an HTTP redirect. An HTTP redirect will work, but then when people are on your Phanfare site, the browser address bar will have a hostname in the phanfare.com domain.
Configuring your Phanfare account to use your custom hostname
If you use Microsoft Windows
- Open Phanfare Photo.
- Choose the "Share -> Website Options..." menu.
- Click the "Add Custom URL..." button.
- Enter your CNAME in the box. Be sure to enter it using exactly the same names as was used to create the CNAME record. Do not prepend the name with "www" if the CNAME record does not include "www".
- Click "OK".
- Click "OK" again.
Note: It may take 10 minutes for Phanfare's servers to recognize your new name. It may also take time for your CNAME record to take effect.
If you use a Mac
- Open Phanfare Photo.
- Click the "Website Options" button on the toolbar, or select the "Share -> Website Options" menu.
- Enter your CNAME in the "Custom URL" field. Be sure to enter it using exactly the same names as was used to create the CNAME record. Do not prepend the name with "www" if the CNAME record does not include "www".
- Click "Save".
Note: It may take 10 minutes for Phanfare's servers to recognize your new name. It may also take time for your CNAME record to take effect.
Troubleshooting
If after setting up a CNAME record and configuring a custom hostname in Phanfare Photo you cannot access your photos using the custom name try the following.
- Ping your custom hostname. From a command prompt, try pinging your custom hostname. For example: "ping albums.smithfamily.com".
- If you receive an error saying that the name cannot be resolved, your CNAME record was not created correctly or has not taken effect yet and you should contact your DNS service provider.
- If ping is successful, re-check your settings in Phanfare Photo to ensure that you did not mis-type your custom name. Again, be sure not to prepend "www." to the name unless your custom name includes "www." in the CNAME record.
- If your settings are correct in Phanfare Photo and your custom host name still does not work after ten minutes, contact Phanfare customer support at support@phanfare.com.
- Make sure to enter your CNAME in all lowercase characters when you type it into the Phanfare application.