Overview
This article offers answers to common questions regarding the Chinese Internet Firewall (aka The Great Firewall) and how to possibly unblock your DreamHost website.
FAQs
What is the China Firewall?
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The Chinese government has implemented a national firewall to block its citizens from accessing selected foreign websites and filtering Internet traffic containing government-regulated keywords.
This applies not only to domains hosted with DreamHost but with other web hosting companies as well.
How does this affect my website at DreamHost?
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DreamHost uses a type of web hosting service called "virtual hosting." In this environment:
- Shared web servers and VPS (private servers) are assigned a single IP address.
- The websites hosted on these web servers also share the same server IP address.
When the Chinese Firewall blocks a domain on these types of servers, it blocks the server IP address, which, unfortunately, blocks all websites on the server.
What can be done to prevent this?
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While DreamHost does not condone Internet censorship, there is no reliable method to bypass this firewall.
Assigning a Unique IP address to your website may provide a workaround, but it is not guaranteed to be effective.
Workarounds
Add a Unique IP
When you assign a Unique IP address to your domain, it no longer shares the IP address of the server (and other domains).
No guarantee
Please be aware that adding a Unique IP address does not guarantee your site will be unblocked. This is because Unique IP addresses are automatically assigned and may already be blocked.
DNS propagation
- The new Unique IP address should start accepting connections within about 4 hours, but it can take up to 72 hours.
- The old IP address continues to accept connections for approximately 5 days to allow enough time for the new DNS information to fully propagate throughout the entire Internet.
- During the configuration transition, it is not uncommon to see the Site not found page when accessing your domain for the first couple of hours.
- If your domain is not using DreamHost's nameservers, you must log into the company where they are hosted and update the IP address of your site to the new Unique IP.
Google Workspace (change URL)
If you're having difficulty using your Google Workspace sites such as mail, calendar, and docs, try using the alternate addresses below:
- Mail — https://mail.google.com/a/example
- Calendar — https://calendar.google.com/a/example
- Docs — https://docs.google.com/a/example
See also
DreamHost links
Third-party links