Hi, I have a problem with the my site’s DNS config.
I had the custom domain CNAME setup working, but the mail server stopped working. The advice from the domain provider was to remove CNAME for the main domain (without prefix) and leave it at .{DOMAIN} (.crossxculture.com). The emails are working again but there is a problem with the DNS config for the domain name without “www”.
The primary domain with www is working and the without www says “redirecting to primary domain” but also “Check DNS configuration”.
Unfortunately I don’t have a lot of experience with DNS and domain config.
The site is www.crossxculture.com.
Hi, @andrevdaalen, and welcome to our Netlify community site.
I’ve made certain that this site will use only the www subdomain and not the apex/root domain. Note, this setting change also means that any custom domains added besides the www subdomain will be ignored. (You’ll continue to see the error about the apex/root domain in the UI but it is safe to ignore.)
If you want to use other custom domains with this site in the future, please let us know and we’ll be able to assist.
Hi, @luke, thank you for the help!
Unfortunately the problem still persists if I enter https://crossxculture.com directly in the browser address bar - it shows NET::ERR_CERT_COMMON_NAME_INVALID or SSL_ERROR_BAD_CERT_DOMAIN. It does not redirect automatically to the www subdomain.
The certificate issuer is COMODO RSA but of course it would be easier if it also uses Let’s Encrypt like the www subdomain. Should I remove the certificate from the domain provider (WebhostOne.de) or is there another way to force a redirect, maybe via the _redirects file?
I tried it last week but it didn’t work as expected. The line I added was https://crossxculture.com/* https://www.crossxculture.com/:splat 301!
The only way to have Netlify automatically redirect crossxculture.com to www.crossxculture.com is for both domains to point to Netlify. At this time the apex/bare domain (crossxculture.com ) doesn’t point to an IP address that Netlify controls so we won’t be able to redirect traffic from that domain.
I incorrectly believed (or at least it seems to be incorrect) that you only wanted to use the www subdomain with the Netlify site. If you want us to change that back to how it was before, we can enable both the apex domain and other custom domains for this site again.
However, in order for this to work DNS records for the apex domain must be configured according to this documentation:
Typically this is done by creating an A record for the apex/root domain as described in the documentation above.
Do you want to point the apex domain to the Netlify site? If so, are there any questions about the DNS settings required for this?
It is correct that I only want to use the www subdomain, I just need the bare domain to redirect in case someone enters the address without www.
I think the config at the domain registrar is wrong. We set a CNAME entry directly on the apex domain but apparently it’s only supposed to be set on subdomains since it caused the problem that all emails were directed to crossxculture.netlify.com (they told us that CNAME has preference over MX-entries) and couldn’t be processed correctly.
I will read through the documentation again and try to create an A record as you suggested. I will post an update if it worked.
Hi @luke, thank you for your assistance. Everything is working after adding Netlify’s load balancer IP address to the A records, making sure all the redirects are correctly set up and renewing the Netlify TLS certificate. 
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