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 Websites 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 Put your website online dialog asks which way (Choose what to do first):

• Build a new site opens the Container Apps 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 opens Add a website on the Websites page. Choose Register a new domain or Use a domain I already have and select Continue, which opens the dialog that 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 Websites and select Register domain….
2. Enter the Domain name, such as example.com, and select Search. The dialog says whether the name is available and shows its Price per year.
3. Choose the Registration period, from 1 to 10 years.
4. Leave Set up a proxy route off, because you create the web proxy in section 3, once the site has somewhere to run. Leave WHOIS privacy on to keep your contact details out of public lookups.
5. Select Register domain.

To use a domain registered somewhere else:

1. In the dashboard, go to Websites and select Add existing domain….
2. Enter the Domain name and select Add domain. The dialog 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 Websites 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 Container Apps server running Node.js or Python, chosen in the Software section of the order page (Order a server). Your app must answer HTTP on the server's primary port.
• A Container Apps server running WordPress, chosen in the same Software section. WordPress keeps its content in a database, so choose a paid plan: the free plan has no databases. 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 an app that you keep in git, Apps can build and run it instead, on your own domain with its own certificate, and you can skip the rest of this tutorial (Run an app or a database).

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. The Container Apps list shows each server's address and port, and Copy address on its row copies them.

1. In the dashboard, go to Edge Proxy and select New proxy….
2. Choose Website or app, then the kind of origin:
   • A server hosted here, for a Container Apps server. Enter the Domain, such as www.example.com, and choose the Server.
   • A server elsewhere, for an instance or any other origin. Enter the Domain, 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 elsewhere, leave Force HTTPS and Web application firewall on as well. A web proxy for a server hosted here starts with both on.
4. Select Create proxy.

The dashboard confirms it, such as Proxy for www.example.com created., and opens the web proxy's Overview tab while Coritan requests the certificate. On the Edge Proxy list, the web proxy's 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 Websites, 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 with the WAF: the WAF, HTTPS and development mode switches
• Store files and backups, so that you can undo a bad change to the site