AWS EC2 WordPress site with Route53 - server DNS address could not be found

Question

I created a Wordpress site in AWS using the "WordPress powered by Bitnami" on the Amazon Marketplace which gave me an EC2 instance. I set up an ElasticIP and have associated it to that EC2 instance. I then created a domain using Route53 and set up a couple aliases and the site worked fine for a couple week at ljagger.com. Overnight though it seems to have stopped working without any input or changes from myself and now I just get server DNS address could not be found when I try and access the site. If I use the elastic IP then it works fine as does the public DNS (IPv4).

I did have an email from Amazon saying my instance was to be retired later this month due to some hardware degradation so created an Amazon Machine Image (AMI) and have since spun up another EC2 instance using that image, disassociated the Elastic IP from the old instance and put it on the new one but still no joy. Does anyone have any ideas of what I can look at?

The security group is the marketplace one for WordPress by Bitnami and contains the following

The Route53 settings with the alias records are as follows

I have also checked the VPC settings as suggested on another post to see that DNS resolution and DNS hostnames are set to yes.

I'm just baffled as it was working fine when I checked it one day and not when I checked it the next evening. My colleague has a site also in EC2 using the WordPress by Bitnami and theirs is fine. I've tried accessing it whilst on a couple different networks and other websites work fine for me.

Answer 1

It looks like you have an issue here that is not exactly technical.

$ whois ljagger.com
...
Domain Status: clientHold https://icann.org/epp#clientHold

This is a somewhat unusual thing to see on a domain.

This status code tells your domain's registry to not activate your domain in the DNS and as a consequence, it will not resolve. It is an uncommon status that is usually enacted during legal disputes, non-payment, or when your domain is subject to deletion.

https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/epp-status-codes-2014-06-16-en#clientHold

But don't be alarmed just yet.

Here's what I suspect might have happened: you overlooked an email, like this one I received very recently.

​---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Amazon Registrar <noreply@registrar.amazon.com>
Date: Tue, Apr 18, 2017 at 8:23 PM
Subject: Verify your email address or your domain example.com will be suspended
To: sqlbot@example.com

Hello,

You must verify your email address or your example.com domain will be suspended 
on Thu, 4 May 2017 00:23:58 GMT. If your domain is suspended, 
it will be unavailable on the Internet.

Click the following link to verify your email address:

https://registrar.amazon.com/email-verification?code=...

If you use this link, we won’t need to ask you for a password.

Why is this required?

ICANN, the organization that manages the domain name system, requires registrants 
of domains to verify their contact information after registering, transferring, or
updating registration data for a domain.

Sincerely,
The Amazon Registrar team

You may be able to find messages in the Route 53 console, under "Registered Domains" or "Pending Requests" at the top left.

You may also have emails in the mailbox you used as a contact address, or in the email address you used when creating the AWS account.

These may be accompanied by information that can get you back on track.

Failing that, you will want to contact AWS support. "Support" is in the top right of the console. Choose Support Center, then Create Case. There is no clear path to Route-53-specific tickets, so I suggest you'd want to create a ticket under Account and Billing Support > Account > Other Account Issues. Choose the "Phone" contact option.