# URL masking question



## btoth (Apr 13, 2004)

Here's my situation, it's really no big deal, but if I could make it work I'd be very happy.

I have a domain (call it www.domain.com) and forwarded to my website stored on my ISP's servers (www.isp.net/~brian/).

Originally I had turned on the domain's "masking" option so that after forwarding you could not easily tell that you had been redirected.  However, with masking turned on, I cannot access subdirectories such as www.domain.com/test -> www.isp.net/~brian/test/ because of the way the masking works.  If I leave it as straight forwarding with no masking, everything works just fine, but of course, as soon as the page loads, the domain name is replaced with the true address of the page.

Is there any way to either do a backwards URL rewrite using mod_rewrite? Or, since my page is already written in PHP, can I replace the URL with the domain name after the page has been loaded?

Thanks for any suggestions.


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## Pengu (Apr 13, 2004)

why not use a paid host with the domain.com address?


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## btoth (Apr 14, 2004)

Because I already have a domain registered with one registrar and I have a lot of free storage space on my ISP's servers.


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## mdnky (Apr 14, 2004)

What it boils down to is you'll either have to pay another host for services, or upgrade the service offered by you current host.  Check with your current host/ISP to see if they can or will provide you DNS service.


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## btoth (Apr 14, 2004)

Yeah, I go through Speakeasy.net as my ISP, they offer great services.  However, I'm short on money because my business is just getting started.  This will work fine for now, I was just curious if it could be done.  Currently my domain name I have is $8 for a single year, so if business picks up and my website gets enough visitors I can spring for the better package with my ISP rather than a 3rd party.  Of course, I could always setup my own domain server... something I don't feel like messing with right now though.


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