Project not accessible on specific network providers in Nigeria

[lordelogos]

Summary

I am reaching out with regards to an issue I am facing with my deployment on vercel for https://clientmail.xyz

I regularly face this issue of it not being accessible when i'm connected to my home wifi but it works fine once I switch to my personal hotspot (for context, wifi - MTN NG, hotspot- Airtel NG)

I used to believe it was a general issue as it affected my hashnode blog before and they reached out and said it was from vercel but now I see Dub (by
@steventey
) still works even over my wifi connection and the other deployment specific links work fine just not by custom domain.

I know it will be hard to replicate this issue so I am available to offer help in anyway to ensure this issue gets fixed

Example

No response

Steps to Reproduce

It is hard to replicate as it only happens sometimes over the MTN network in Nigeria.

[WorkMender]

I am facing the same issue here. However, were you able to get this working?

[rowend36]

The reason is because Vercel's shared IP address 76.76.21.21 is being blocked every now and then by ISPs. As of today 15/03/24 3:58pm, only Globacom is allowing it.

For now, there are two solutions:

1. Move your entire site away from Vercel.
2. Create a "redirect rule" or it's equivalent using something like Cloudflare. The purpose of the script is to redirect domain.com to www.domain.com. This works for me.

[uzoway]

Hello @WorkMender & @rowend36, I'd appreciate it if you can share a resource that shows how to "create a redirect rule"

[WorkMender]

Do you intend to use AWS amplify?

[WorkMender]

You can refer to this youtube link to learn how to setup AWS amplify

[uzoway]

No, I don't intend to use AWS. Thank you sharing the Youtube link. Appreciate it!

[boyepanthera]

@rowend36 I did the redirect rule but it only seemed to work on desktop it doesn't redirect to www. on mobile

[rowend36]

Sure, Mr. Uzorchukwu. But first of all, you have to have your domain hosted on Cloudflare. You'll have to change your authoritative nameservers. 1. Sign up on Cloudflare 2. Add Website 3. Enter your domain name. You will be given 2 nameservers. 4. Find out how to change authoritative nameservers on your own for the platform on the platform where you bought your domain. 5. Once your website has been connected to Cloudflare, follow the steps here to create a "dynamic" redirect rule: https://developers.cloudflare.com/rules/url-forwarding/single-redirects/examples/ . NB: There are in fact, other ways to do this outside Cloudflare but to keep it simple, let's just go with Cloudflare. Owologba Oro Software Developer, Reelest Studios

…

On Sat, Mar 16, 2024, 7:43 AM Uzochukwu ***@***.***> wrote: Hello @WorkMender <https://github.com/WorkMender> & @rowend36 <https://github.com/rowend36>, I'd appreciate it if you can share a resource that shows how to "create a redirect rule" — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#3630 (reply in thread)>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AG3ZCQ5HQBZFNCP6XPY2WX3YYPSYPAVCNFSM6AAAAAA3RO64CSVHI2DSMVQWIX3LMV43SRDJONRXK43TNFXW4Q3PNVWWK3TUHM4DQMBZG42DK> . You are receiving this because you were mentioned.Message ID: ***@***.***>

[uzoway]

Thank you for sharing! I appreciate it.

I got the domain for the website I'm having this issue with GoDaddy. I'll have to find a way to do this on GoDaddy!
Thank you once again.

[rowend36]

It does not actually matter where you got the domain.

Just change your authoritative nameservers to the one Cloudflare gives you.

[ihtishamKhan]

@rowend36 I have changed the nameservers in goddady to Cloudflare given, but my website is hosted in vercel. How do I direct there?

[nwazuo]

I'm experiencing this issue as well. My client's websites hosted on Vercel all have frequent downtimes from the most common network providers around here. Accessing with a VPN does work but most people don't use that. I'll need to use a different service like AWS amplify going forward as this might be hard for Vercel to fix.

[uzomao]

Experiencing the same issue here, mostly with MTN NG. Would a permanent fix be the responsibility of Vercel or the ISPs?

[rowend36]

Please, follow the link on step 5.

…

On Wed, Mar 20, 2024 at 9:40 PM Ihtisham Ul Hassan ***@***.***> wrote: @rowend36 <https://github.com/rowend36> I have changed the nameservers in goddady to Cloudflare given, but my website is hosted in vercel. How do I direct there? — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#3630 (reply in thread)>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AG3ZCQ2AVGUZXWWU26PDTODYZHX2BAVCNFSM6AAAAAA3RO64CSVHI2DSMVQWIX3LMV43SRDJONRXK43TNFXW4Q3PNVWWK3TUHM4DQNJXHEYTQ> . You are receiving this because you were mentioned.Message ID: ***@***.***>

[nwazuo]

So, I've been able to work around this using the flattened CNAME records feature of Cloudflare.

TLDR(Too Long, Didnt' Read...): You can use Cloudflare DNS as your authoritative DNS server, move all your DNS records over to Cloudflare and configure your apex domain to use CNAME instead of A record, which helps bypass this issue.

Basically, you can only point an A record to a specific IP address, which most of us do when we configure the domain for our Vercel websites. (i.e. pointing yyyy.com -> 76.76.21.21 on your domain registrar (e.g. GoDaddy, Namecheap, assuming you're using them as your authoritative NameServers)).

The www version of your Vercel website domain configuration uses a CNAME record that points to cname.vercel-dns.com. Now, this CNAME record resolves to a dynamic IP address 76.76.21.xxx, and hardly every hits the problematic one 76.76.21.21.

The trick was to find a way to get the apex domain (yourwebsite.com, without www) to resolve to one of Vercel's non-problematic IPs.
Luckily, Cloudflare implements CNAME flattening, which allows you point your apex/root domain to a non-IP value.

So, I point my apex domain (yourwebsite.com) to a CNAME with the cname.vercel-dns.com value and Cloudflare resolves that to one of Vercel's non-problematic IP addresses.

If you're not well-versed with how DNS works, you can take some time to read(or... ask AI🙂). But essentially, you can use Cloudflare DNS as your authoritative DNS server and move all your DNS records over to Cloudflare and configure your apex domain to use CNAME instead of A record, which helps bypass this issue and keeps everything stable (also double check your other service to ensure they work, but they should).

[nwazuo]

Also, if you do this, turn off proxying on the CNAME records pointing to your apex domain and www(for your apex domain) as I experienced an 'ERR_TOO_MANY_REDIRECTS' issue with proxying on for those.

Hope this helps.

[mosessmax]

if you get "ERR_TOO_MANY_REDIRECTS" issue on anywebsite hosted with cloudflare, just go to the SSL Status on the sidebar and set the SSL from flexible to full. and you're good to go. @nwazuo

[nwazuo]

@mosessmax It was already set to that and still not working. Turning off proxying was what worked for me

[amyegan]

Thank you all for for reaching out and sharing what worked for you.

We are in contact with the Nigerian government and ISPs to remove the block block against our 76.76.21.21 IP address. Given this is not a block initiated by Vercel, we are limited in what actions we can take and I am not able to estimate long it will take to resolve.

I will post updates here as new information is received. I appreciate all of you for understanding.

[hanspet9x]

Add CNAME record name www.domain.xyz to your authoritative server.
use any DNS resolver to resolve cname.vercel-dns.com
Change your primary domain value to any IP address closer to your location.
Redirect domain.xyz to www.domain.xyz on vercel domain configs (Use permanent redirection)