[Busby]

Well, you could do a "hack". A sub-domain can point to any IP, without affecting your main website. So you could setup a subdomain, pointing to a server you have on OVH with a web-server (which I read in your earlier post, if I am correct), that contains all the files.

Ie. "www.busby.com" and "busby.com" points to your current Joomla hosting provider, "music.busby.com" could be pointing to an OVH server. But it could mean more work in maintaining it all...

Yes, that's what I have at the moment, but its not ideal with files scattered all over the place. I have my site, then I have listen links for the Trance stream on one server and listen links for the House stream on another - very messy and I don't do 'messy'

Many thanks for your input though!

[Myatu]

Well, you could do a "hack". A sub-domain can point to any IP, without affecting your main website. So you could setup a subdomain, pointing to a server you have on OVH with a web-server (which I read in your earlier post, if I am correct), that contains all the files.

Ie. "www.busby.com" and "busby.com" points to your current Joomla hosting provider, "music.busby.com" could be pointing to an OVH server. But it could mean more work in maintaining it all...

[Busby]

That short url seems to work OK. You can simply add the long one again and change the "Shorten With" (hover over "bit.ly" to see other domains) before you click the "Shorten button" - not very obvious at first, agree. Then it'll appear underneath, with two links "Customize" and "Copy". Customize will give you the option to change it to a more human URL

OK, I've registered another sub-domain and I waiting for it to propagate because the previous one had too many characters

Back to the previous problem regarding pointing sub-domains at folders on my site, looks like there is no solution to that other than moving hosts?

[Myatu]

That short url seems to work OK. You can simply add the long one again and change the "Shorten With" (hover over "bit.ly" to see other domains) before you click the "Shorten button" - not very obvious at first, agree. Then it'll appear underneath, with two links "Customize" and "Copy". Customize will give you the option to change it to a more human URL

[Busby]

Sorry, didn't see this - posted at nearly the same time you posted. Once it's setup according to the instructions of Bitly, you can add URL's through bit.ly itself (and select which domain you'd like to use, for example, you're own custom one). Then it'll give you the "short" version (and you can click "customize" next to it, to give it a more memorable name).

Grr this is driving me nuts lol..

I put the url in and it came back with 'http://bit.ly/zo8oKq' but I couldn't see and way of changing that to anything more meaningful..

Why does life have to be so complicated!

[Myatu]

Ensure you've added the custom domain at https://bitly.com/a/custom_domain_settings. Then go to bit.ly, enter the link to http://mydomain.co.uk/trance/listen.m3u in the large box, select your custom domain next to "Shorten with" and click the "Shorten" button. That's the URL that will refer to the "listen.m3u" file.

[Busby]

OK, I think I understand - its not what I was wanting to do, but nevertheless its a usefull tool, but I am still struggling to grasp how to use it.

For arguments sake, if I wanted to have a short url 'l.mydomain.co.uk' and point it at http://mydomain.co.uk/trance/listen.m3u, first of all I make a CNAME 'l' in my sub-domains and point it at 'cname.bitly.com.'
Its the next stage I don't understand, because I don't see any settings at bit.ly to tell it where to go from there and it simply lands on their home page..

I'll probably kick myself when you tell me what I am doing wrong

[Myatu]

Update: The sub-domain now resolves to bit.ly but I can't see where I point it to the file on my site..

Sorry to be so thick!

Sorry, didn't see this - posted at nearly the same time you posted. Once it's setup according to the instructions of Bitly, you can add URL's through bit.ly itself (and select which domain you'd like to use, for example, you're own custom one). Then it'll give you the "short" version (and you can click "customize" next to it, to give it a more memorable name).

[Myatu]

If you want to something like "l.busby.com/trance/a_file.m3u", where "l.busby.com/trance" points to "www.busby.com/music/files/", then no (you would have to create a link for each individual file instead). Otherwise, i should. What bitly does is simply a "redirect".

So a browser - including an MP3 device/application that can properly handle HTTP responses - will first go to "l.busby.com/trance".

Bitly will then reply with a "What you're looking for has been moved to http://mydomain.com/trance/listen.m3u" HTTP response. In turn, the browser/device/app will go there instead.

Any MP3 file or stream listed inside the m3u will have its own URL (so basically, the m3u could be at http://this-site.com/listen.m3u, but the actual file or stream is specified as http://somewhere-completely-dfferent.com/liten/to/music.mp3").

[Busby]

Update: The sub-domain now resolves to bit.ly but I can't see where I point it to the file on my site..

Sorry to be so thick!

[Busby]

Ah, I see. If your original host allows you to add DNS records yourself, have you considered using the http://bit.ly service? You can add your own custom domain for this as well.

So say your domain is "busby.com" - you can have a bit.ly for "l.busby.com" (L for "listen", as an example here). Then a short URL, like "l.busby.com/trance" would automatically take you to "www.busby.com/music/trance/listen.m3u". Short and easier to remember/share, plus you get some statistics to keep an eye on link performance.

It's a free service too

Many thanks Myatu - that seemed to be exactly what I'm looking for and I never realised you could do that.. But looking closer, what I actually want to do is point at a folder which contains several links rather than at a specific file.

For example, I want to replicate 'http://trance.mydomain.co.uk/listen.m3u' from 'http://mydomain.co.uk/trance/listen.m3u' so that my iTunes links continue to work..

Will this work please?

[Myatu]

Ah, I see. If your original host allows you to add DNS records yourself, have you considered using the http://bit.ly service? You can add your own custom domain for this as well.

So say your domain is "busby.com" - you can have a bit.ly for "l.busby.com" (L for "listen", as an example here). Then a short URL, like "l.busby.com/trance" would automatically take you to "www.busby.com/music/trance/listen.m3u". Short and easier to remember/share, plus you get some statistics to keep an eye on link performance.

It's a free service too

[Busby]

Is your domain hosted with OVH? You should be able to do this with the "Web Redirection" option for the domain (Domain -> Hosting -> Web Redirections).

No, I'm afraid my domain is with my origional host..

I tried moving my domain once before and it was weeks before I got things working again afterwards, so I don't really want to go through that again..

[Myatu]

Is your domain hosted with OVH? You should be able to do this with the "Web Redirection" option for the domain (Domain -> Hosting -> Web Redirections).

[Busby]

the subdomains should work with any decent shared host...

if you can't do that on your new hosts server, it means the apache server is not configured properly.

this can be done both with cPanel and DirectAdmin control panels.

Yes yonatan, that's what I thought, but you don't get any panel, Joomla is auto-installed, and all you get is an additional module in Joomla with a few features like logs, backup, cron jobs and phpmyadmin and that's it. Anything else and you have to ask them to do it..

[yonatan]

the subdomains should work with any decent shared host...

if you can't do that on your new hosts server, it means the apache server is not configured properly.

this can be done both with cPanel and DirectAdmin control panels.

[Busby]

I have a slightly complicated question which I need help with please. Its a long story, so bear with me if you can...

I have been running an internet radio station for a number of years and I use Joomla! CMS to run the website side of things. Everything was fine until last year when my shared hosting provider told me my site was using too many server resources to continue with them, and they disabled my site. A friend kindly offered to host me on his Kimsufi basic server, which was great until we went live, and immediately swamped the processor. I went to the Joomla community for help, and got fixed up with a company who specialise in Joomla! shared hosting, and things seem to be OK with them..

Now to my problem; on the host I was originally with, I had sub-domains set up for my listen links like this: http://trance.mydomain.co.uk/listen.m3u with the sub-domain pointing at the folder http://mydomain.co.uk/trance/listen.m3u. Sadly, my new host informs me that it can't be done on their servers, so as a short-term solution I have pointed the sub-domains at a couple of servers I have with OVH.

I understand that the normal way to do this is to point the sub-domains at my shared hosting space, and put a redirect in the .htaccess, but their engineers tried this and it took the site offline. So they just told me to sod off basically.

I wondered if anyone has any suggestions regarding a more permanent solution, apart from moving hosts again that is. I have a couple of OVH servers running Linux, and a couple running Windows, but they are used for streaming not serving websites. I also have a couple of sites hosted elsewhere that I could put my listen files on if that would work.

Any suggestions please?