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Technical References

Add and map a domain to a site

Domains for sites on the VIP Platform are added in the VIP Dashboard. Domains have specific environment associations, so be sure to select the environment from the dropdown your domain will point to before following the directions below. A dropdown with a list of existing environments is located at the upper left of the Domains panel.

Prerequisites

Users must have access to the VIP Dashboard to add a domain.

Add a domain

Caution

Adding the domain with or without www will determine the fully qualified domain name (FQDN) for a site.

For WordPress multisite environments, redirects between the www and non-www URLs do not occur automatically. These redirects will need to be set up in the vip-config.php file.

WordPress single site

  1. Navigate to the VIP Dashboard and select the “Domains” panel option at the left.
  2. Add the domain by selecting the “+ Add Domain” button located in the upper right.
  3. Enter the domain and select “Add Domain“.
  4. After a short wait, the domain will appear in the list of domains associated with the environment.

WordPress multisite

  1. Navigate to the VIP Dashboard and select the “Domains” panel option at the left.
  2. Add the domain by selecting the “+ Add Domain” button located in the upper right.
  3. Enter the domain and select “Add Domain“.
VIP Dashboard view of adding a domain for WordPress multisites.
  1. Select “Skip” to complete the process of adding the domain without launching a subsite.
  2. After a short wait, the domain will appear in the list of domains associated with the environment.

Point DNS to VIP

Once you’ve confirmed that the site is ready to go public, point the DNS for your domain to VIP to make the VIP site available to the public.

Note

If your site has a reverse proxy configuration review the set up instructions before updating DNS for your domain.

  1. To the right of each domain, the “•••” button opens an overflow menu to access DNS information for that domain.
  2. The “Setup your DNS” panel in the VIP Dashboard provides the values to point your domain to VIP using ALIAS, ANAME, or A Records for root domains and CNAME records for subdomains. Select and copy a record value from the “Setup your DNS” panel and follow the instructions from your own domain registrar or DNS host to add a new DNS entry.
    VIP recommends using ALIAS records to route your DNS for root domains whenever possible.
VIP dashboard DNS record screen
VIP Dashboard showing the DNS Instructions: IP addresses and URLs have been replaced with example text

Once the DNS for a domain is updated to point to VIP, the speed at which the new VIP site becomes visible at your environment URL will depend on the Time To Live (TTL) that you set for the domain with your domain provider. DNS can take up to a full 24 hours to propagate around the world. We recommend using a service like DNS Checker to confirm that your DNS was pointed correctly and ensure that it is propagating successfully. 

You can also run a command via the Command Line Interface (CLI) to confirm that your DNS is pointed correctly to the ALIAS, ANAME, A record, or CNAME provided via the VIP Dashboard:

$ dig www.example.com

Last updated: September 24, 2021