Custom domain on AWS

Published

Thu, 12 of September, 2024

Modified

Sat, 20 of April, 2024

The following steps help when setting up a new website that is hosted on GitHub Pages. Then, since GitHub Pages supports using custom domains, there are the instructions to re-direct tje site’s URL from the default <user>.github.io/domain to a custom domain name registered on AWS. Since GitHub Pages supports using custom domains, there are the instructions to re-direct the site’s URL from the default <user>.github.io/domain to a custom domain name registered on AWS.

Assuming you have:

  1. An AWS account
  2. A GITHUB account
  3. A website (distill/blogdown/quarto) in a GH repo that is being already deployed using GH PAGES on a domain like gh_user.github.io/domain_name/ (in my case https://lulliter.github.io/domain_name/)

KEY AWS INFO: Domain & Hosted ZOne

  • Amazon Route 53 – used to register domains and to define where you want to route internet traffic for your domain. We explain how to create Route 53 alias records that route traffic for your domain (example.com) and subdomain (www.example.com) to an Amazon S3 bucket that contains an HTML file.

  • Amazon S3 – used to create buckets, upload a sample website page, configure permissions so that everyone can see the content, and then configure the buckets for website hosting.

INSTRUCTIONS for website {Github Pages + AWS}

[on GitHub]: initiate a repo in the usual way

  1. Create a new repo on GitHub
  2. Go on local PARENT directory of the intended repo
  3. Execute
git clone https://github.com/Lulliter/example.git
  1. on Local/GitHub: deploy website via Github Pages
    • add content
    • git add/commit/push (or see my ./_render-deploy.sh)
  2. Configure the Repo to publish on https://lulliter.github.io/example/ by going to Settings –> Pages –>
  • make sure to have a ./docs folder and indicate to GH that you will deploy from it
  • and to create a .nojekyll file for GitHub pages to work with a quarto website!
  1. on local: CNAME Looking forward, we will need to have a file named CNAME that contains a single row: your custom domain (in this case: thepadrinoz.com)

❗ Before adding/committing to repo CNAME, at every push, the custom domain gets decoupled from GH Pages settings ….

[on AWS] Buy a domain

  • on AWS: Go to Route53, under ‘register domain’ then follow instructions to buy a domain (usually 10$/12$ per year). e.g. example.com

  • on AWS Route53: domain registration should be done automatically

    • first, it will appear under DOMAINS –> Pending Requests [a verification email will be sent by AWS]
    • after it will be under DOMAINS –> Registered Domains

I had already bought some DOMAIN from Amazon… + lulliter.com + R4biostats.com

[on AWS] set up a “HOSTED ZONE”

I see “HostedZone created by Route53 Registrar”

NOTE: If AWS did not automatically create a hosted zone upon buying the domain name, create one.

So for example if you bought the domain name username.com, you create the hosted zone name username.com. Once created open it up. Once you have created the hosted zone, open it up, click the Type NS, and copy the values on the right (4x url’s to awsdns addresses). Then go to the registered domains from the left menu, and in the Name Servers section on the right, click Add or edit name servers, delete any contents in there, and add the 4x lines you just copied one by one. This gives your domain name the address to the hosted zone.

[on AWS]: Redirect the domain to my website on Github pages

  1. Log into AWS Console –> Route53

  2. In your Route53 dashboard, click hosted zones

  3. Click on the hyperlinked name of the domain you would like to use so it can open its specific page. Without doing nothing I already see:

    • example.com — Type NS — …
    • example.com — Type SOA — …

  1. Click Create Record A (This will be your example.com rule)

    • Do not enter anything into the Name field
    • Under the Type dropdown, select A — IPv4 addresses
    • The Alias toggle should be UNSELECTED
    • Enter the following four IP addresses into the value text area.
    185.199.108.153
   185.199.109.153
   185.199.110.153
   185.199.111.153
  • Then click Save Record Set “Create Record” .

[on AWS]: Configuring a subdomain www.example.com

  1. Create another A type of record set (your www.example.com rule, aka an alias for example.com)

    • Into the Name field, enter ‘www’
    • Under the Type dropdown, select A — IPv4 addresses, again
    • SELECT Alias on the dashboard, from dropdown menu, choose “Alias to another record in this hosted zone” and then www.example.com. (it has the full stop!!)
    • Then click Save Record Set Create Record .

In GH Pages, when you write under "Custom domain" the new name of your vanity example.com domain something will happen. If you are publishing your site from a branch (e.g. master branch / ./docs), this will create a commit that adds a CNAME file directly to the root of your source branch.

💡 SO next time you push from local it will tell that your branch is ahead or something an you must do some form of git pull

# praticamente pull da remoto + insieme merge ai cambiamenti locali 
git config pull.rebase false

  1. Last, go back to GitHub repository’s settings tab

    • Scroll down to the GitHub Pages section
    • In the Custom domain field enter your custom domain: example.com
    • Click Save
    • Check Enforce HTTPS

[on local]: Adjust the .yml file of your website

Lastest 😥, go to “_site.yml” and replace base_url

##  e.g.  in quarto.yml 

website:
  title: "The example KOOL stuff"
  site-url: https://example.com

EXTRA STEP on GH Pages 🤔

[on GH Pages]: fix GHPages error

GH Pages is asking me to point www.domain.com to a CNAME record (instead of an A record)

REFERENCE