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Should I register my domain or my subdomain on DO?

Posted August 7, 2020 405 views
DNS

I will install Discourse here on DO, and I’ve done the necessary preparations in the how-to guide I’m following, including adding my domain to DO. But Discourse will run on a subdomain, so I added the subdomain to DO instead of the domain. Now I’m waiting for the DNS changes to propagate, but I have a nagging feeling that I should have added the domain instead…

Which is the correct way to do this?

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lyseoy
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lyseoy

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bobbyiliev August 7, 2020

Hi there @lyseoy,

What you can do is to add your domain name to your DigitalOcean account, then change your nameservers to the DigitalOcean nameservers:

https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-point-to-digitalocean-nameservers-from-common-domain-registrars

Once you have your nameservers set to the DigitalOcean ones, what you could do is add an A record for the subdomain name that you would like to use to point to your Droplet’s IP address.

Note that if you have any existing DNS records for your domain name, you should copy them over to your DigitalOcean DNS zone before changing your nameservers.

Let me know if you have any questions.
Regards,
Bobby

How To Point to DigitalOcean Nameservers From Common Domain Registrars
by Josh Barnett
by Kathleen Juell
DNS is the naming system that is used to bind a domain name to a web server. In this guide, we will change the nameservers for a domain that we have registered and point it to a DigitalOcean Droplet.
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  • lyseoy August 7, 2020

    Thanks Bobby

    One follow up questions actually: I’m following this guide for the setup: https://solomon.io/how-to-setup-discourse-on-digital-ocean/

    It says I should have a Mailgun service set up. I’ve done this, and added the MX records. I set these to the subdomain, figuring that since I plan to have several Discourse forums on separate subdomains of the same domain, they should have their own Mailgun services. I’m not sure if this is right/wise. What do you recommend?

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    • bobbyiliev August 11, 2020

      Hi there @lyseoy,

      I believe that it should be ok to use your main domain name as well. You basically just need the SMTP details for the Discourse installation.

      Let me know how it goes.
      Regards,
      Bobby

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