Using a Custom Domain Name with Your Rocketship Site

INTRODUCTION

Having your own domain name for your website looks professional, makes it really convenient for telling people how to get there, and it's easy to setup with Rocketship! Here's how to do it:

There are two options for setting up a custom domain name to work with your Rocketship site: the Simple option and an Advanced option.

The Simple option is great for most customers who do not need custom DNS records. (If you don't know what this is, then the Simple option is the one for you!) For customers who need to do more advanced things or just want to manage their own DNS, then the Advanced option is the way to go.

SIMPLE DNS Setup:

Use this option if you just want your website and email to work at your domain, and you don't need to do anything fancy.

Step 1:

Login to where your domain name is registered (such as GoDaddy.com), and change the nameservers to the following:

dns1.launchrocketship.com
dns2.launchrocketship.com
dns3.launchrocketship.com (optional)
dns4.launchrocketship.com (optional)
dns5.launchrocketship.com (optional)

Technical Note: You can then also set a custom mail server, or use Google Apps in Rocketship, but any other subdomains (something.yourdomain.com) aren’t possible. If you need more control over your DNS records, then the Advanced option is going to be the best approach.

Step 2:

Login to your Rocketship site, and click on the 'Publish' icon. Enter your domain name 'yourdomain.com' and click the 'SAVE' button.

That's it, you're finished!

Keep in mind that DNS changes can take up to 72 hours to fully take effect across the entire Internet, so you'll need to be patient. Some people will see the changes happen sooner than others—it all depends on the frequency of when your Internet Service Provider (ISP) updates their DNS Records.

ADVANCED DNS Setup:

Use this option if you're a fancy pants user who needs to setup custom DNS records to run other services (such as an FTP server) or subdomains (example: ‘something.yourdomain.com’) at your domain. Here's how to do it:

Step 1:

Create a CNAME Record: ‘www’ (that points to) ‘sites.launchrocketship.com’

Step 2:

Setup a ‘301 Permanent Redirect': ‘yourdomain.com’ (redirects to) ‘www.yourdomain.com’

A ‘301 Permanent Redirect' does the following: Redirects your domain to the URL you specified in the ‘Forward To’ field using a “301 Moved Permanently” HTTP response. The HTTP 301 response code tells user-agents (including search engines) that the location has permanently moved. This will also make sure that if someone types in your domain without the 'www' in front of it, they will still get to your website.

Every domain registrar has their own system for setting up DNS, so you'll need to contact them for any specific help in setting this up.

Here are instructions for setting up a 301 Permanent Redirect with GoDaddy: http://help.godaddy.com/article/422

Technical Note: The reason we have taken this approach is that, while Rocketship utilizes an 'elastic IP' system on EC2 and we don't anticipate changing things, we cannot guarantee a specific IP address to point your domain to because we must reserve the flexibility to change IP addresses if needed without causing interruption to all of our customers’ websites. Thanks for your understanding!

Step 3:

Login to your Rocketship site, and click on the 'Publish' icon. Enter your domain name 'yourdomain.com' and click the 'SAVE' button.

That's it, you're finished!

Keep in mind that DNS changes can take up to 72 hours to fully take effect across the entire Internet, so you'll need to be patient. Some people will see the changes happen sooner than others—it all depends on the frequency of when your Internet Service Provider (ISP) updates their DNS Records.