Custom Domain Names

dotCommunity offers all website administrators the ability to use their own domain to access their website.

Every dotCommunity website is initially given a unique URL on the service on which it is running. e.g., if you had a website called "Demo Website" it might be at http://e-voice.org.uk/demosite/

However, if you have registered the domain mydemosite.com, then you could set it up so that your website was accessible at http://www.mydemosite.com/ instead.

Setting up your website to use a custom domain is a two step process:

  1. The dotCommunity service needs to be configured to show your website when accessed with your domain name.
  2. The owner of the domain needs to configure the DNS of the domain to point to the IP Address of the dotCommunity service.

Part 1 must be done by a sitewide administrator of the service, so before you configure your domain you should contact them to request that the service is configured accordingly.

Configuration of the Domain

You need to ask the sitewide administrator to set up the service before you configure your domain. The sitewide administrator will give you an IP Address that you need to add to your DNS settings.

This step cannot be done through dotCommunity, it can only be done via the company that the domain was bought from. Typically the company that sells the domain will also provide a web interface that allows the domain owner to configure the DNS settings.

Your ultimate aim is to set up an A Record for your domain pointing to the IP Address provided by your sitewide administrator.

The method for setting an A Record with an IP Address varies depending on the registrar of your domain. Typically the steps are a bit like this:

  1. Log in to the website of the company from which the domain name was bought.
  2. Select the domain that you wish to configure, (e.g. "mydemosite.com")
  3. Go to the DNS Settings for the domain. (There will probably be a link like "DNS Settings" or "DNS Management" or similar)
  4. If an A Record already exists, replace it with the IP Address provided by the sitewide administrator.
  5. If no A Record exists, create a new one which points to the provided IP Address.

Sometimes you can set a separate A Record for the entire domain ("mydemosite.com") as well as the www subdomain ("www.mydemosite.com"). In which case you can set both.

Note that changes to your DNS settings can take up to 24 hours to propagate through the Internet.

More Specific Instructions

Here are a few instructions for configuring your domain which are more specific to your domain registrar. If your registrar is not listed here then try the general instructions above, or you could contact us and we'll see if we can add it!

Buying a Domain Name

There are lots of companies around that sell domain names, and it doesn't matter which one you choose. Cambridge Open Systems don't recommend any companies over any others - they all offer similar services.

We have successfully used the following companies to buy domain names:

Whichever provider you choose, you only need to buy the domain, and you don't need to pay for any extra hosting services. The cost is usually around £5 to £10 per year, though this depends on the particular domain name.