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Manage Domains

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Launching Your Website on MODX Cloud

Overview

Launching your website project on MODX Cloud involves pointing a custom domain name (e.g., domain.com) to your Cloud instance. You can assign one or more custom domains to any Cloud instance in MODX Cloud. This guide will walk you through the three primary steps to complete this process:

  1. Add Custom Domain(s)
  2. Activate Live Production Site
  3. Point Your Domain(s)

1. Add Custom Domain(s)

Before making your site live, you need to add one or more domains to your Cloud. This allows the MODX Cloud system to route traffic to your Cloud from the internet and enables visitors to see your site on that custom domain.

Steps to Add a Domain (Custom Hostname):

  1. Go to the Cloud Edit Page and select the Domains & Config tab.
    domains-and-config-tab-add-a-domain-1.png
  2. Click Add Domain to open a dialog for entering details.
  3. Enter the domain name in the Name field.
    domains-and-config-tab-add-a-domain-2.png
  4. Click Add a Domain.
  5. Repeat for any additional domains you want to point to this Cloud.

2. Activate Live Production Site

Live Production Sites are MODX Clouds that serve traffic to a custom hostname (e.g., yoursmallbusiness.com). This is different from the modx.dev (e.g., abc1234.modx.dev) hostname used during development or pre-launch stages.

Steps to Activate a Live Production Site:

  1. After adding all your Custom Domains, go to the Domains & Config tab.
  2. Click the toggle at the top right of the tab for the site in question.domains-and-config-live-production-site-1.png
  3. Proceed through the checkout if prompted*.
    domains-and-config-live-production-site-2.png

Note: Activating a Cloud as a Live Production Site may incur additional monthly fees. All plans include one or more Live Sites. If you're already using your plan's included Live Site(s), you'll need to proceed through checkout to add the new Live Production Site to your subscription.

3. Point Your Domain at Your Cloud

To point your custom domain name to your Cloud, you need to create an A Record for your domain at your domain management or registrar website.

Steps to Point Your Domain:

  1. Go to the Cloud Edit Page and locate the IP address listed on the right side of the General Information tab.
    cloud-ip-pointing-address.png
  2. Copy this IP address.
  3. Go to your DNS Manager or registrar site.
  4. Set the A record for @ (representing the root domain) to the IP address you copied.

Once the DNS change propagates to DNS servers, your Cloud will be available at your custom domain.

Additional Domain Actions

Adding a Subdomain

  1. Go to the Cloud Edit Page and click on the Domains & Config tab.
  2. Click the Add a Subdomain button to open a dialog box.
    add-subdomain-cloud-domains-and-config.png
  3. Enter the subdomain you want (e.g., manage) and be sure to choose the right root hostname from the dropdown to the right and click Add a Subdomain to complete the process.
    add-subdomain-domains-and-config.png

Note: You may need to use a third-party tool (e.g., ContextRouter) or an nginx web rule to route traffic to a context in your MODX install or to a subdirectory of your web root.

Removing a Domain

  1. Go to the Cloud Edit Page and click on the Domains & Config tab.
  2. From the list of domains, right-click on the domain you wish to remove.
  3. Choose the Remove domain option to complete the process.

To stop being charged for a production cloud, remove all domains and then disable the Custom Domains option at the top of the Domains tab.

Optional: Add Cloud Edge™ CDN/WAF

MODX Cloud offers an optional Content Delivery Network (CDN) and Web Application Firewall (WAF) service called Cloud Edge™. For information on how to add this service to your site, please refer to the separate Cloud Edge™ documentation.

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