Hi! Had a question. I'm interested in setting up my domain to point to my normal webhost (Dreamhost) for mail and web queries, and somehow forward all other queries to my Linode.

I'm really not confident about setting up a HTTP server and a POP/IMAP/SMTP server and keeping them patched and working on my Linode, and I also don't want to reduce my performance. I intend to use my Linode as a remote desktop (I have FreeNX on there now) as well as a server for a computer game that I'm working on.

The goal would be to have people who try to access port 80 or mail ports at "www.domain.com" and "domain.com" to get routed to Dreamhost, but if I try to ssh into those same URLs I get my Linode.

What would be the most effective, efficient, and simple way of doing this?

Without doing some funky port fowarding trickery, I'd simply keep "domain.com" and "www.domain.com" resolving to your dreamhost IP, and make a "linode.domain.com" entry that points to your Linode's IP. Use "linode.domain.com" when you want to access it.

-Chris

Thanks for the advice. I'll probably go ahead with that, actually. I'll just have to think of something appropriate to use as a subdomain.

Incidentally, a friend of mine suggested an additional option to me. They suggested that I set my MX record to point at my email host, and then point the rest of the TLD to my Linode. To get my alternate host to cover the web as well, I could set up a simple permanent-redirect directive in Apache or something similar.

However, coming up with a subdomain is probably for the best. You're right; there'd be a lot of crazy routing to do, and while it'd be fine for some purposes, I need reliability with minimal administration. (Hence leaving my web service in the hands of a host that "does it for me", such that I can concentrate solely on the software I'm writing.)