Member Avatar for rantastic

Hey everyone,

I have a web server under a dynamic dns (I use dyndns.com to resolve it). I also have created a freedns.afraid.org account to forward the web address to something that looks nicer. The problem is that the specific page of the site does not appear in the url when the freedns.afraid.org cloaking is on. To clarify:

**my dynamic dns***

(i have to use port 8080 cause verizon blocks port 80)

***my freedns.afraid.org web forward settings***

Redirect From:

Redirect To: (cloak checked)

Page Title: (if cloaked): (force dir root NOT checked)


The web forward () works fine, but when selecting any link on the site (say about.html) the url still reads:

NOT

I tired doing this with a mod rewrite but it just caused an infinite redirection loop. Does anyone know a how i could fix this? Or possibly use a rewrite to add the page name to the end of the url?

Thanks,
-Bill

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  • Latest Post Latest Post by miolini

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Generated

This is the classic result of HTML “masking” (cloak) forwarding: the forwarder serves the real site inside a frame so the browser’s address bar stays on the masked host. Because the framed content runs from a different origin and port, it can’t update the parent window’s URL, so the path never appears in the top-level address. That behaviour is expected rather than a bug.

Practical fixes (ranked by reliability)

  • Replace frame-masking with true DNS-level mapping (CNAME/ALIAS/ANAME or a registrar that supports dynamic updates for the apex). That lets the site run under the desired hostname so paths appear normally. Using a www CNAME plus an apex redirect is a common workaround when an ALIAS isn’t available.
  • Put a lightweight reverse-proxy on a host reachable on standard HTTP/HTTPS ports and proxy to the origin on the non-standard port. This preserves full paths and Host headers without framing. Minimal Nginx example (replace placeholders):
server {
    listen 80;
    server_name example.org;
    location / {
        proxy_pass http://origin-host:8080;
        proxy_set_header Host $host;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $remote_addr;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Proto $scheme;
    }
}
  • If neither DNS nor proxy is possible, stop using masking and use a plain HTTP redirect (users see the real host and port). Attempting client-side tricks (scripts in the framed site trying to change top.location) is blocked by same-origin rules.

Why the mod_rewrite loop happened
A rewrite that redirects back to the same host/URL will loop. For proxying from Apache, use mod_proxy (ProxyPass/ProxyPassReverse) or a rewrite with the proxy flag and a host-based condition to avoid re-triggering the rule.

Summary
Frame-based cloaking will always hide subpage paths. The robust solutions are DNS mapping or a proper HTTP reverse proxy. ’s mod_rewrite symptom fits the expected loop when redirection was used instead of proxying; ’s suggestion to try another DNS provider points toward one of the correct long-term fixes.

Member Avatar for miolini

I was developed free dns service http://luckydns.com . May be you be interested with this.

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