DNS Setup
This article will guide you trough DNS Setup for Front-Commerce Cloud
How to setup my domain DNS
This guide will explain how to configure your DNS entries for a domain hosted on Front-Commerce Cloud.
For this section, let's assume that you own a retro computer part shop called Retro Computer Parts.
While setting up your cloud access, the Front-Commerce team must have
communicate what we call the CNAME target. The CNAME target is like your website
ID on our cluster and its format is like:
retro-computer-parts.front-commerce.cloud
Requirements
- A domain: in our example it will be
retro-computer-parts.shop
- An access to your registrar configuration: every domain name is registred with a registrar, if you own your domain, reach your IT or Marketing service to know who can access the registrar configuration and update DNS entries. If your domain name is managed by the integrator you're working with, you'll need to reach them to process DNS operations.
- Your CNAME Target: this domain is like an ID of your website on our cluster,
the format of this domain is normalized and ends with
.front-commerce.cloud
. This domain must have been communicated to you by the Front-Commerce Team. In our example the domain is retro-computer-parts.front-commerce.cloud. The CNAME Target is only here to link your website to our cluster and serves nothing, search engine won't care about this domain.
Staging domain
When setting up your project on our cloud, the Front-Commerce team would have
ask you the domain you want to use for staging environment, if you don't have
specific needs, our team will setup a default staging domain that match the
CNAME Target, in our example, it would be
retro-computer-parts.staging.front-commerce.cloud
To link your staging domain to your Front-Commerce cloud staging environment,
you need to follow these steps, in our example we want to use
preview.retro-computer-parts.shop
- Contact Front-Commerce support trough cockpit to ask us to add this domain for staging. And wait for confirmation before proceeding to further operations.
- In your DNS configuration, add the entry
preview
as aCNAME
that points to your staging CNAME Target (exampleretro-computer-parts.staging.front-commerce.cloud
). - Wait for the new entry propagation.
- Enjoy your staging domain on your custom domain.
Production domain
You're up and ready to go production? Great! Let's set-up your domain to serve your brand new Storefront!
Let's say that you want your shop to have this url:
https://www.retro-computer-parts.shop
.
You must:
- Reach Front-Commerce team to communicate the final URL of your website and wait for their validation before processing further operations.
- Create or update your DNS entry
www
and make it point to the CNAME of your CNAME Target (in our example:retro-computer-parts.front-commerce.cloud
- Wait for the propagation to root DNS server.
- Let customer discover your brand new Website!
Most of the website uses www
subdomain to serve their website, however, some
may wants to serve what is called the APEX domain. The APEX domain is the root
of the DNS entry, in our example http://retro-computer-parts.shop
. To link
your domain to our cluster, we use CNAME mechanisms, a lot of DNS providers
doesn't support CNAME for APEX domain, if it's your case, please check the FAQ
below to learn how to handle this case.
FAQ
Why do you use CNAME over classic A entries for DNS?
CNAME mechanism allow you to add a simple entry for DNS. Since we manage the
front-commerce.cloud
domain, it will allow us to process operation on our
cluster without requiring you to make any DNS modification. This way, we can for
example prepare your website for a traffic peak for example, or quickly handle
an outage to make your website always available.
I want to make a redirection from APEX domain to www
subdomain, how can i do it?
Some DNS Registrar allow to use CNAME on APEX domain, it your registrar allow you, you just need to point your APEX domain to the CNAME Target. Some registrar have documentations on how to handle this case:
- Azure: Azure Documentation
- OVH: OVH Documentation
If you can't bind your APEX domain to a CNAME entry, we have some suggestions for you:
- Make the APEX domain point toward a server you own and setup a vhost that will
redirect to the
www
subdomain. - Reach our support to setup an APEX redirection.
- Monitor the
www
subdomain to get the final IP and update the APEX to point to this IP.
When heading to my CNAME Target, i see an error message, what to do?
Target domain serve nothing, it's just a DNS link to our cluster, this is normal to see an error page.