Connecting custom domain(s) to your websites in your Dollie Cloud

Introduction

Inside Control HQ, there is a streamlined process to quickly connect one or multiple custom domains to your sites in the Dollie Cloud.. This guide explains how the domain management process works in Control HQ.

Domain Connect Overview

- Default Domain: Every time you launch a site in your Private Cloud a default domain is created using your own white label deployment domain. For example newsite.your-platform-sites.io

- Primary Domain: This is the domain you connect when the site is ready to go live. So when you want newsite.your-platform-sites.io to become newsite.com, you add 'newsite.com' as your primary domain.

- Secondary Domains: If you have another domain you would like to redirect to your Primary Domain, you can add one or more secondary domains.

- Automatic DNS Checks: Control HQ checks the status of all your domains every 10 minutes. When it sees that the DNS records for the domain point to your Private Cloud IP address it will mark the domain as active automatically.

- Priority Management: If more than one custom domain is active you can control which domains should be "Primary" or "Secondary".

How it Works

Adding Custom Domains

Inside Control HQ go to the site you would like to add a domain to, and then press on the "Domains" menu item.
Press the "Add Domain" button.




You will be instructed to make DNS changes for the domain by updating the A and WWW records for the domains.

Control HQ will check the DNS records of the domain every 10 minutes. You can also trigger a manual check by pressing the "Check Status" button.
Once the DNS change is detected the domain is marked as active. If you only have one custom domain it will also be automatically set to Primary, and we will automatically update the URL of your site to use your custom domain.
If you have Multiple domains you can select which domains should be primary or secondary by clicking the action buttons on the right side of the domain name.

Connecting Your Domains when you use CloudFlare or another WAF/Proxy service

If you are using Cloudflare make sure to "unproxy" the A records that are pointing to the IPs below during the domain attach process. This means that you want to disable the Orange Cloud when adding your DNS records

Deleting Domains

- Deleting a Custom Domain: If you delete a primary custom domain, Control HQ will look for the next active custom domain and make it primary. If no active custom domain is found, it will revert back to the original deployment route.

- Deleting a Non-Primary Custom Domain: If you delete a non-primary custom domain, there will be no change in the primary domain status.

Manual Promotion

You can promote any active custom domain to primary at any time.

Updated on: 03/03/2024