Resolving to root domain

This guide provides an overview of how to set up a custom domain on a Production Instance using platformOS's DNS web service, as well as create and provision an AWS SSL certificate for your Instance.

Requirements

To be able to set up a production domain on the Partner Portal, you have to have access to the Partner Portal, have a production Instance, and you should be familiar with the recommended development workflow.

• Register on the Partner Portal
• Create an Instance
• Development Workflow

There are a couple things to consider before you add a custom domain to your platformOS production Instance:

1. A domain can only be added on a production data center. This means that you cannot set up an additional domain on a staging data center Instance.
2. PlatformOS Instances require the ability to apply a Fully Qualified Domain Name (FQDN) to a DNS record. If your DNS management service does not allow for that, you will need to change providers or opt to use the free fully integrated hosted zone that is provided to you as a benefit of hosting with platformOS. When setting up your custom domain, this is the first decision you must make.
3. We automatically provision and deploy AWS SSL certificates when you add a domain to a platformOS Instance. To apply custom SSL certificates, please contact support@platformOS.com and we will assist further.

Let's begin.

platformOS DNS and resolving to root domain (example: https://example.com)

1. Sign into your domain registrar and export your zone file, or save your current DNS records (if any) off to the side so you can add them to the platformOS hosted zone in a later step.
2. Go to the Instance detail page in the platformOS Partner Portal: https://partners.platformos.com
3. Click Domains.
4. Click Add new domain to your Instance.
5. Click DNS Zone.
6. Add your root domain name (do not add www), check the box if this will be your default domain, and finally click Create DNS Zone.
7. From the Domains page, you'll want to refresh the page every few minutes until the status of the new domain changes to reparking_domain. Once it does, click view.
8. Now, add all your DNS records (if any) to the newly created DNS Zone by clicking "add additional record" to add each new record. This is all done 'offline' so this won't impact your current live settings if your domain is currently in use. When done. Click Commit DNS Changes.

When you are ready to "Go Live", please continue.

9. Update the nameservers in your domain registrar and click Save.
10. Once the nameservers are recognized in your domain registrar, click I have changed Name Servers on the DNS Zone page in your partner portal.
11. Depending on how quickly the nameserver changes propagate (from a few minutes to a few hours), you may have to click I have changed Name Servers a few times and refresh the page a few times. Do not be concerned if some of the records you created in the hosted zone appear and dissappear in the first few minutes after you update the nameservers. Once the Hosted Zone recognizes the change in nameservers, the stats for all your records should be OK and you should be all set.
12. Currently this process will create a www subdomain and a redirect from the root domain to the subdomain. We need to remove that. From the Instance detail page, click on Domains.
13. We will improve this shortly, but for now, in the URL that appears, remove the /pp_dns. Example: https://partners.platformos.com/instances/5253/pp_dns/domains would be changed to https://partners.platformos.com/instances/5253/domains - From this page, we will remove the redirect from root to www, and add a redirect from www to root. Click Edit on the root domain.
14. Make sure that Use as default is checked and that redirect is unchecked. Then click Update Domain.
15. Next, click on edit for the www subdomain.
16. Finally, make sure 'Use as default' is unchecked and check "redirect". Add the direct URL to the root domain and then choose your redirect code. Once completed, click Update Domain.

Congratulations! An SSL certificate has been created and applied to your Instance and your domain is now LIVE!