I’ve been using infinity free for a while and have become accustomed to updating my SSL certificate when it expires every few months. This month I have been offered something new, a new destination or something i am unable to understand. Basically it says my old destination is “not ready” so I tried adding the other destination to my nameserver like I did with the old one, but they are not working. Im not being given the certificate information I need to copy into my account.
By NOT READY I mean several days have passed. I have never encountered this error before.
As you can see on the SSL certificate verification page, the current CNAME record of your domain name has the wrong value. So please delete the current record in the control panel and create a new record with the value shown in the client area.
A few months ago, we moved to a different DNS system for the SSL verification. Unfortunately, it was not possible to carry over the existing CNAME records, so you need to setup a new CNAME record to request a new certificate.
You should only have to do this once. The current DNS system is a lot better and faster than what we had before, so we shouldn’t have to change this again any time soon. For the next renewal in three months, you can just request a new certificate without additional steps.
I didnt understand I had to make internal cname changes in the control panel. I was only changing the destination in namesilo. It seems to work now. thanks.
The client area clearly said that your domain was using our nameservers and that you needed to edit the CNAME records in our control panel.
Did you overlook these instructions? Or assumed that they didn’t apply to you? Or was there another reason?
Those are not static instructions, they change depending on the nameservers you use. So if the instructions say to set the records through our control panel, it means you should use our control panel.
There were no such instructions. Frankly, the writing in your website looks like a Chinese person trying to write english. The wording is obtuse, but i’ve come to accept it in a kind of “dont look a gifthorse in the mouth” kind of way. Its free, so I cant really complain, but I didnt see any instruction to change the “destination” in the control panel. Frankly, if you are making such a large scale change I would have expected YOU to have changed it on the internal side. I only thought to change it in namesilo, which makes sense because it’s a different company and my personal problem. However, I repeat I did not see any instruction to change it in the control panel. In fact, there was no instruction even to change it in Namesilo. I merely deduced that fact because there was a new “destination” and the “current one” was “not ready”. So it could only mean changing the destination in namesilo. I dont remember ever even changing the destination in the control panel, but maybe I did originally a long time ago when i first set up ssl. It’s no big deal though.
I’m going for “overlooked” then. Because on the CNAME records page, right above the content of the CNAME records you need to add, you should see content that matches this exactly:
It says where you need to add the CNAME records, and shows a link with detailed instructions.
Still not entirely sure how you could have overlooked it, but you clearly did.
If you have any ideas on how to improve it, I’d be happy to consider it. The more specific, the better, because “it looks like it was written by a Chinese person” doesn’t really give me a good handle to get started.
FYI: I’m not a native speaker, but I’m also not Chinese.
Maybe get rid of the “View Instructions” part for people who already know how to set up SSL or who have been successfully updating their ssl every few months, and make a link directly to the “cname” area of the control panel of the site. This would avoid confusion. Write something like “the destination needs to be changed both here in infinityfree and at your domain name provider”.
Hmm, I’m not entirely sure how this would help prevent others from experiencing the same trouble as you did.
You have been successfully renewing your SSL certificate every few months, and you thought you knew how to setup SSL. But still you didn’t know where to setup the CNAME records after they went out of date. And you accused us of providing no instructions, and your solution to this is to remove the instructions that are there?
Maybe I don’t understand what went wrong, but it seems counterproductive to solve the problem of not being able to find instructions by removing the instructions.
Linking directly to specific control panel pages is not possible to my knowledge, but I think we can add a control panel login button that drops you into the control panel of the right account at least.
This is not actually the case. You only need to change the DNS records are your current DNS provider. That’s what the instructions say. That could be us, it could be your domain name provider, or it could be a different provider entirely (like Cloudflare). You only need to setup the CNAME records at one provider, but you do have to set it up with the right provider. The instructions on the page are supposed to point you at the place where you need to set it.
In your case, the CNAME records you setup at NameSilo are entirely irrelevant. None of the DNS records you setup on their end matter because you’re not using NameSilo’s nameservers.
That would be pretty difficult. But looking up the account that has the domain name and showing a login link is definitely possible. If no account can be found, then that won’t work of course.
In namesilo, I had to add the acme address and the destination information as an entry under my domain names. This is the only place I remember dealing with destinations. Additionally, the instructions you link to basically told me to do this. Maybe I glanced over the words “control panel” and then saw the instructions, which I already know how to do and figured you wanted me to put the new destination in my domain name provider. I cant see how this could be avoided, as if I only changed the destination in the control panel, the destination would still be different at my domain name provider and need fixing there, as I said namesilo wants this destination as well.
Frankly changing it the control panel was pretty easy, but also redundant.
If you make such a universal change, why cant you simply update this information in “our control panel”? If it is “ours” you could have saved us all the trouble of making a simply “copy-paste” action into the control panel a string of meaningless numbers that you refer to as “destination”. And I would still have to copy the new destination into the 3rd party domain name registrar.
If you doubt that I know how to do this, the simple test you can do is see if my website has SSL lock on it. If I dont know what im doing how do I get the SSL lock? I must be doing something right.
“The CNAME records should be set up with the DNS hosting provider of your domain name.”
NameSilo has a very specific area where you add cname records. There are two blank form fields. You choose CNAME or whatever, then you add the acme entry in one form field, then the other says “destination” and wants the destination string given to me at infinityfree. I’m surprised this is even an issue to be contested. It’s like a given that you have to set up cname records at namesilo that point back to infinityfree.
This is a screenshot of namesilo. This has always worked to make my sites SSL friendly. Naturally, as you gave a new destination, I changed the value here. The other thing about control panel didnt make any logical sense to me and seems redundant.
I don’t think you understand. Whoever your nameservers are pointed to has control over the DNS zone for your domain.
If your nameservers are pointed to ns1.epizy.com and ns2.epizy.com, than InfinityFree has full control over your domain’s DNS zone. If you need to make TXT/CNAME changes, you need to do it in your InfinityFree control panel. Changes made elseware will not affect your domain.
NameSilo has these options because they want to be in charge of your DNS zone.
I have limited technical understanding of this stuff, but I seem to remember my SSL not working until I added those entries in namesilo. Of course, normally I copy the SSL Certificate into the control panel. Though I am not a certified webdesigner who understands these issues entirely, I do know some HTML and coding and can generally make my websites work. And like I said, I dont think my SSL lock was “locking” until these entries were added in NameSilo.
To be clear: you do not need to set any DNS records at NameSilo. Ever. You’re using our nameservers (epizy.com) which means that any DNS records need to be set through NameSilo.
NameSilo also knows this. When I open the DNS Records page for a domain using other nameservers, I get this popup message:
You are currently NOT using our default nameservers for this domain. Therefore, any DNS changes you make will NOT have an impact.
This is what I’m trying to make clear as well. The DNS records need to be set through our panel, and only our panel. You do not need to create any DNS records at NameSilo ever, because you’re not using their nameservers.
As general advice: please be aware of the nameservers you’re using on your domain, and only look at the DNS records set at the operator of those nameservers. Other websites may have tools for DNS records too, but if you’re not using those nameservers, the records will not have any impact on your site.
I really, really wish this were possible. Many people struggle with setting up the CNAME records, and I really wish I could do this automatically for them. Asking people to copy stuff from one part of “our” system to another part of “our” system is frankly a disgrace, and I really wish it wasn’t necessary, but it is.
However, the control panel is built and maintained by iFastNet, the client area is built be me, and the control panel has limited integration options. I’m making do with what I’ve got. And the Free SSL Certificates as they work now is the best I can do.
If I could access all control panel features programmatically, it would be trivial to set the CNAME record automatically. And also install the certificate automatically, while we’re at it. But I don’t have that possibility.
Also, when Let’s Encrypt needs to verify the domain name, they will look at the DNS records that are actually published on your domain name. So this is what the Current Destination in our panel looks at as well. It doesn’t look at what you’ve configured in our control panel, it looks at what’s actually published on your domain name, by the nameservers you’re using on your domain name. So you only need to set the CNAME records in our control panel if you’re using our nameservers. If you’re using other nameservers, you need to configure the CNAME records there.
Doing something right and knowing how to do something right are not the same.
For starters, you create this topic because you needed help setting the CNAME records. I told you to create them in the control panel, which you did, and it worked, but you still don’t appear to understand what’s actually necessary (which is: ignoring the DNS records at NameSilo and only set the records in our panel).
