Question

Point the root domain to static website

Hello,

I already found some related information, but it don’t seem up to date.

I have a domain example.com and manage the DNS in digital ocean. ns1.digitalocean.com, ns2.digitalocean.com, ns3.digitalocean.com are configured to example.com. I also set up a CNAME for subdomain test.example.com for a web application.

Now I need to point the root domain, example.com, to a static website. I created a new app in digital ocean, connected to gitlab repository, and got the xyz-123.ondigitalocean.com domain. Now I thought I can just add another CNAME for example.com -> xyz-123.ondigitalocean.com. But the DNS Controlpanel won’t let me do this.

Can you please help me how to connect the root domain example.com to xyz-123.ondigitalocean.com?

Thanks in advance


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alexdo
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May 12, 2023
Accepted Answer

Heya,

For pointing your root domain to an App Platform app, you cannot use a CNAME record. Instead, you need to use an ALIAS or ANAME record. However, DigitalOcean’s DNS service does not support ALIAS/ANAME records currently.

As a workaround, you can create an A record pointing your root domain (example.com) to the IP address of the app xyz-123.ondigitalocean.com. Keep in mind that this method isn’t ideal since IP addresses might change. To obtain the IP address, you can use a tool like dig or nslookup.

Another option is to use a third-party DNS provider that supports ALIAS or ANAME records to manage your domain’s DNS.

For more information on managing DigitalOcean DNS, please visit our DNS documentation.

https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/app-platform/how-to/manage-domains/

Hope that this helps!

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