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How to set up a Custom Domain

Your backend endpoints are always available at <your_canvas_name>.builtwithdark.com/*.

If you'd like, you can additionally use a custom domain like www.myawesomedarkservice.com or api.myawesomedarkservice.com to serve your endpoints!

We'll manage SSL for you - no need to buy your own certificate to make your site or service available over https.

How to set it up​

  1. Set up a CNAME record that points from your desired domain to <your_canvas_name>.darkcustomdomain.com. For example, if your canvas is called ellen-demo, point your CNAME at ellen-demo.darkcustomdomain.com. The specifics for this step depends on how you manage your DNS settings, but here's what it might look like on Cloudflare:

    Setting a CNAME on Cloudflare

    Note: You cannot use an apex domain like myawesomedarkservice.com. Using www.myawesomedarkservice.com is the usual way, although you can use app, api, or another subdomain instead of www. This is because apex CNAMEs aren't supported by the DNS spec, and A records remove some of our options for providing stable and resilient infrastructure. You can read this Netlify post for more information.

    If you wish, you can additionally set up an A record pointing the apex (e.g. myawesomedarkservice.com) to 35.227.208.117. We cannot currently provide an SSL cert for that, but we can redirect to your main subdomain (which is usually www). If your DNS provider supports ALIAS records (like CNAME, but permitted on an apex), that also works - though again, for redirects, not SSL certs.

  2. Double-check that DNS has resolved. One way to test this is with the dig tool on the command line. If everything is ready, you should see something like this:

     $dig api.myawesomedarkservice.com
     # ...
     ;; ANSWER SECTION:
     api.myawesomedarkservice.com.    300    IN    CNAME    ellen-demo.darkcustomdomain.com.
     ellen-demo.darkcustomdomain.com. 300 IN A 35.197.124.122
     # ...

    Another way to check is with a service like https://dnschecker.org/.

  3. Once DNS resolves, contact us with your domain and canvas, and we'll set up an SSL cert and the appropriate redirects from http to https on our end.

Troubleshooting​

I've set up a CNAME but I still don't see <your_canvas_name>.darkcustomdomain.com in the results from dig!​

We've seen this happen for develops using proxies like Cloudflare in front of their domains. For example, you might see:

$ dig api.myawesomedarkservice.com
# ...
;; ANSWER SECTION:
api.myawesomedarkservice.com.    300    IN    A    104.24.118.127
api.myawesomedarkservice.com.    300    IN    A    104.24.119.127
# ...

To resolve this, turn off the proxy. On Cloudflare, you can press this button to switch from "Proxied" to "DNS only" mode: Turning off the Cloudflare proxy in favor of &quot;DNS only&quot;

My DNS is set up correctly, but I'm getting an invalid certificate warning when trying to visit my custom domain via https​

If this happens we likely haven't set up an SSL certificate for you yet (see step 3 above). In any case, please contact us with your domain and canvas.