Put a website online

This tutorial puts a website on your own domain, such as www.example.com, served over HTTPS through Coritan's network with the web application firewall (WAF) in front of it. You get a domain, run the site on a server, create a web proxy that forwards visitors to it, and check that its certificate is live. Each section ends with something you can check before you go on.

It costs the domain's yearly price, which View domain prices lists in the More website actions menu of the Domain Management page, and the plan of the server that runs the site. The certificate and the web proxy come with no order and no invoice (How Edge Proxy is billed). If domains, DNS or certificates are new to you, read Domains and DNS and Web proxies, origins and the WAF first.

Once account plans open on your account, the dashboard's Welcome page can start this for you. Select A website, and the Add a website page opens with Where will your site run? (Choose what to do first):

• Build a new site and the button Order a WordPress server open the server order page with WordPress chosen, on the cheapest plan that runs it. Order the server, then get a domain as section 1 describes and finish WordPress's setup as section 2 describes.
• Use a site I already have shows Do you have a domain? on the same page. Choose Register a new domain or Use a domain I already have, which lead to what section 1 describes.

• A Coritan account. Create an account if you have none, then sign in.
• To register a domain, credit on the account for the whole registration period. Coritan takes the price before it registers the domain (Add credit to your balance).
• The site itself: code or files that a web server can serve over HTTP.

Register a new domain, or add one you already own. Either way, Coritan hosts the domain's DNS zone, its list of records.

To register a new domain:

1. In the dashboard, go to Domain Management, select Add a website, choose Register a new domain and select Find a domain. This opens the Domain order page.
2. In section 1, Domain, keep Register selected, enter the Domain name, such as example.com, and select Search. The page says whether the name is available and shows its price for a year.
3. In section 2, Period, choose the Registration period, from 1 to 10 years.
4. In section 3, Options, leave Set up a proxy route off, because you create the web proxy in section 3 of this tutorial, once the site has somewhere to run. Leave WHOIS privacy on to keep your contact details out of public lookups.
5. In the summary, choose how to pay and select the button, which says Register domain when your credit covers the total (Register a domain).

To use a domain registered somewhere else:

1. In the dashboard, go to Domain Management, select Add a website and choose Use a domain I already have.
2. Enter the Domain name and select Add domain. The page, now titled Point your domain here, lists the nameservers to set at your registrar.
3. Select Open DNS, and add the records the domain uses today, such as its mail servers, so that nothing stops working when you switch (Add, edit and delete DNS records).
4. At your registrar, replace the domain's nameservers with Coritan's, ns1.coritan.com to ns8.coritan.com.

The domain appears in the Domain Management list. A domain you registered starts on Coritan's nameservers. For a domain you added, the list says DNS hosted here, and the zone answers once your registrar publishes the new nameservers: dig NS example.com +short then lists Coritan's (Add a domain you already own).

The site needs an origin: a server that answers HTTP requests for it. Choose one:

• A server on App Deployment running Node.js or Python, chosen from the Catalogue on its order page (Order a server). Your app must answer HTTP on the server's primary port.
• A server on App Deployment running WordPress, chosen from the same Catalogue. WordPress keeps its content in a database. A server's database slots come from its size and its add-ons. Once the server runs, open its Databases tab, select New database… and create one (Databases). Then open the server's address in a browser, and enter the Host, Database, Username and Password that Show credentials lists in the WordPress setup.
• A Cloud Compute instance with a web server that you install, such as nginx, answering on port 80 (Get a cloud server).
• A server you run somewhere else, with a public address.

If your site is in a git repository, App Deployment can build and run it instead, or serve it from our edge when it builds to plain files, on your own domain with its own certificate. Then you can skip the rest of this tutorial (Deploy from a git repository, Host a static site).

Open http:// followed by the origin's address and port in a browser, such as http://203.0.113.10:80, and check that your site answers. Under App Deployment, the top of a server's page shows its address and port, and Copy address copies them.

1. In the dashboard, go to Domain Management, open the domain and select the Origin tab.
2. Choose the kind of origin:
   • Connect to one of your servers, for a server on App Deployment. Choose the Server.
   • Use any other server, for an instance or any other origin. Select New web proxy…, enter the origin's IP address as the Origin host, such as 203.0.113.10, and its Port, such as 80.
3. Leave Request a certificate automatically on for a server hosted here. A web proxy for any other origin starts with Force HTTPS and the Web application firewall on, and Coritan requests its certificate.
4. Select Connect domain, or Create web proxy for another origin.

The dashboard confirms it, such as Web proxy for example.com created., and shows the Origin tab with the new settings while Coritan requests the certificate. In Game Shield, the Web proxies tab lists it, and its Protection column shows the WAF and HTTPS badges (Create a web proxy).

Visitors reach the web proxy once its name resolves to Coritan's network. With the zone on Coritan, that takes a proxied record, which Coritan answers with the addresses of its network.

• When the name had no A, AAAA or CNAME record, Coritan added a proxied record for it when you created the web proxy.
• When the name already has an A or AAAA record, go to Domain Management, open the domain and select the DNS tab. Edit the record and turn Proxied on.
• When the name has a CNAME record, delete it on the DNS tab, then add an A record with the origin's address and Proxied on.

On the domain's DNS tab, the name's record shows Proxied.

1. Go back to the web proxy's Overview tab. While the certificate authority checks the name, the Certificate card shows Issuance in progress. It stops checking after three minutes, so reload the page to see the result.
2. Once the certificate is active, the card offers Renew now. Open https://www.example.com in a browser.

The browser opens your site over HTTPS with no warning, and http://www.example.com redirects to https://. To serve example.com as well, create a web proxy for it too, and give it a whole-domain redirect to https://www.example.com (Redirect the whole domain).

The browser warns that the connection is not private

The certificate is not active yet, so Coritan answers with a certificate for another name. Read the Certificate card, and select Request certificate when the last request failed (Request or renew the certificate).

An error page with 502 or 504

Coritan's network cannot reach your origin, or the origin does not answer in time. Check that the site answers at the origin's address and port, and that nothing on an instance blocks that port from the internet (Troubleshoot proxies and join addresses).

A route for this domain already exists

The name already has a web proxy (Create a web proxy).

• Set up email for your domain
• Protect a website: the WAF, Under attack mode, hotlink protection and rules of your own
• Store files and backups, so that you can undo a bad change to the site