How do I set custom domain name for my environment?

How do I set custom domain name for my environment?

With Gigality PaaS, you have a possibility to set external domain address for your site, instead of the default environment URL env_name.gigality.net. The custom domain allows promoting your unique branding and improve your web application recognition over the Internet.

Before diving in, let’s deal with some basic concepts for better understanding:

  • Domain is the name you specify within a browser to access a website. The part of the name to the far right (for example .com or .org) is known as the top-level domain (TLD), and the part before it - the second-level domain (SLD). Subdomain is an optional part, which is placed in front of the SLD and is separated with a period. See the image below for example.

  • Root Domain is a combination of the second- and top-level domain names without the subdomain. Such an address represents a whole website instead of a particular web page. Each site has a unique root domain, which is included in all its pages and subdomains.

  • DNS is a system that converts textual domain names into numerical IP addresses, which are needed to locate and identify web services. For example, when you type www.mydomain.com into the browser address bar, it looks for the actual IP address of the server that hosts this page, e.g. 209.50.246.12. Herewith, if you type https://209.50.246.12/, you will arrive at the exact same site.


Tip: Gigality PaaS also provides the full gTLD + IDN Domain Names support so that you can use both internationalized and generic top-level names for your external domains.

There are two steps to attach the domain to your environment:
  1. Update the A record at your domain registrar.
  2. Bind the domain name to you environment (if needed).

How to configure the A record for your domain name?

1. Login to your domain registrar panel.
2. Go to the DNS settings.
3. Create/Edit "A" record and point it to the Public IP that is shown in the Gigality Environment.

How to bind the domain name to your environment?

1. When working without public IP addresses attached (i.e. DNS record points to the Gigaglity environment name via CNAME or ANAME), you need to bind the appropriate domain name. It is necessary for the Shared Load Balancers to correctly route traffic to the target environment.

Note: Custom domain binding via the Gigality dashboard is unnecessary if public IP is enabled for the environment, as incoming traffic bypasses SLBs.

2. Within the Gigality dashboard, click the Settings button (the wrench icon) for the environment you need to bind a domain name.
3. Within the automatically selected Custom Domains menu tab, use the Domain Binding section to specify your domain name (e.g. www.myexternaldomain.com or myexternaldomain.com) and Bind it with the corresponding button.

Note: It may take up to several minutes until the new URL settings will take effect.
Great! your environment is now accessible under its unique domain name.

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