Domains: DNS: Unable to add a root A record

[bikedorkjon]

I believe this may be a bug since "@" is a valid DNS designation for "this domain" I thought it would work when adding an A record, but instead I received an error.

To reproduce:

1. Go to https://wordpress.com/domains/manage/mydomain/edit/mydomain > DNS records
2. Click Add New DNS Record
3. Under "Type" select A record
4. Under "Points To" add an IP address
5. The error happens under "Name" it will not work if left blank or with an "@"
6. Cannot click "Add New DNS Record"

Will produce an error under Name that says "Invalid Name"

I was able to add the A record from the WP Admin Domain Manager using @.

Users are also unable to add MX records with blank or "@" values. Which is necessary to setup google apps: https://support.google.com/a/answer/174125

reported by @isocialtish @gwwar

[umurkontaci]

Hey Jon,

I think it kinda makes sense to prevent the users to add root A/AAAA records since these are the records we are managing for them to use WordPress.com.

For MX, I tried was able to add an MX record to the root domain by just typing "example.com". I believe we might remove the requirement to type the whole domain, and I've opened an issue for that earlier: #2284.

Is this still an issue for you?

[klimeryk]

I'll work on this as part of #2262, since I've already done some work in that regards.
As @umurkontaci noted, redefining a root A/AAAA records should not be allowed, but for MX I think it's OK.

[mashmac2]

There are quite a few cases where the user needs to redefine a root A/AAAA record, though - I just had a chat today with a user moving to Squarespace where they needed to redefine the root A record. I suspect many users who are moving to another service need the ability to redefine a root A record.

[oskosk]

I suspect many users who are moving to another service need the ability to redefine a root A record.

Weebly is another website provider that demands a straight A record pointing to one of their multiple fixed IP Addresses for domains registered outside Weebly. What they recommend on their support pages is:

• An A record for userdomain.com
• An A record for www.userdomain.com

They even have a page dedicated support page with instructions for doing this on WordPress.com

[klimeryk]

You are absolutely right - the cases you are describing are completely valid and we should support them. But in order to do that, we should also add the possibility to restore the A records provided by WordPress, so that, if needed, users can easily point their domains back to WordPress.com.
Kinda like we are doing for nameservers - we allow to set custom ones or use WordPress.com's.

[BrookeDot]

I love the idea of allowing users to revert the Root A Records. I've been in communication with users who will point to another service and then want to switch back to use WordPress.com's which is currently a bit of a pain.

Since this has not yet been implemented I'm going to re-open this.

[klimeryk]

Good idea 👍 GitHub automatically closed this because I referenced this issue in a commit, but like, you said, it should remain open.

[designsimply]

+1 for allowing removal and restore root-level A records for WordPress.com. It was a common request on live chat in my recent support week rotation.

/wp-admin/paid-upgrades.php?page=domains seems to have the option to remove but not restore, and it would be nice to have feature parity there.

[mashmac2]

I don't know if we're discussing this still, but it's an ongoing issue, with several tickets/day from this issue.

If a long-term solution isn't high-priority right now, could we at least throw a helpful error message when they try to add an @ record or blank A record?

Something like 'If you're trying to edit your A record so that it no longer points to WordPress.com, you'll need to do that on the My Domains page" with a link to the My Domains page.

Thanks!

[BrookeDot]

@mashmac2 Thanks for your comment. The most recent discussion and pull request can be found at #3711 There are a few bugs to work out however, it is being worked on, hopefully it'll be merged soon.

[folletto]

Another user today tried to follow both our instructions (here) and Squarespace ones (here, which use the WP Admin UI) and it was impossible to proceed.

[BrookeDot]

Closing as fixed in #3711 which was merged a few hours ago.