Custom domains

Every web service has its own appentic.app address, and you can choose its name. You can also serve it from a domain you own. Appentic checks that you control the domain, then issues and renews its TLS certificate.

Choose your appentic.app address

A new web service gets an address made from its name, such as kanban-313763cfb597.appentic.app. To choose a nicer one:

1. Open the web service's Settings.
2. Under Domains, in Appentic address, type the name you want, for example three-lanes, and click Update.

The name can have 3 to 40 lowercase letters, numbers and hyphens, and can't start or end with a hyphen. Appentic tells you if it's taken or reserved. The new address works over HTTPS within about a minute, with no DNS to set up.

The previous address keeps working, so links you've already shared still reach your app. Only one previous address is kept: change the name again and the one before it stops working.

While a web service or load balancer has domains of your own, its appentic.app address is fixed, because your DNS records point at it. Remove your domains first if you need to change it.

Add a domain

1. Open the web service's Settings.
2. Under Domains, in Your own domain, click Add Domain.
3. Enter the domain, for example example.com or app.example.com, and click Add.

A root domain comes with its www version. Adding example.com also adds www.example.com, and adding www.example.com also adds example.com. A subdomain such as app.example.com is added on its own.

www is your address

Your app is served on www.example.com. Visitors to example.com are sent there, before the request reaches your app. Everyone uses one address, so people sign in once and search engines see one copy of each page.

• A page visit (GET or HEAD) gets a permanent redirect (301) to the same path and query on www.example.com.
• Any other request gets a 308, so a form post stays a post.
• http://example.com goes straight to https://www.example.com in one step.
• example.com/api and example.com/webhooks, and everything under them, reach your app without a redirect. API clients drop their credentials on a redirect to another host, and most webhook senders don't follow redirects at all.

Use www.example.com in links, OAuth callback URLs and webhook settings. Subdomains such as app.example.com and your appentic.app address serve your app directly.

Add the DNS records

Under the domain, Appentic lists the records to add at your DNS provider. Most providers add your domain to the host name for you, so the Host column shows only the part you type. Use the copy buttons to avoid typos.

For example.com, served by a service at my-app.appentic.app, the records are:

One TXT record verifies both example.com and www.example.com.

The @ record can't be a CNAME, so use the record the dashboard shows:

• an A record with host @ pointing at the IP address shown, or
• an ALIAS or ANAME record (also called CNAME flattening) with host @ pointing at your service's hostname, if your DNS provider supports it.

A subdomain such as app.example.com needs a TXT record at _appentic.app and a CNAME record with host app pointing at your service's hostname.

Verify

Once the records are in place, click Verify. Appentic looks up the TXT record.

• Found and matching: the domain is verified, with its www version, and Appentic starts issuing certificates.
• Not found: DNS changes can take from a few minutes to a few hours to reach everyone. Wait and click Verify again.
• Found but not matching: check that you copied the whole value.

Certificates

After verification, TLS Certificates shows a status for each name. Both example.com and www.example.com get a certificate, so the redirect works over HTTPS too.

Once a domain is Active, it also appears under URL on the service's Overview. Appentic renews certificates automatically.

Remove a domain

Click the bin icon next to the domain and confirm. A root domain is removed with its www version.

Events

Adding, verifying, activating and removing domains appear on the web service's Events page.

Load balancers and private services

A web service in a load balancer has no address of its own. Add domains on the load balancer's Settings page instead; they work the same way. A private service has no public address, so it can't have domains.