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Point a Domain at Your VPS
Add the A, AAAA, and CNAME records that send a domain to your server, set sensible TTLs, verify with dig, and fix the usual propagation surprises.
A server has an IP address; people expect a name. Pointing a domain at your VPS is two DNS records at whoever hosts your domain's DNS, a short wait, and a check. This guide covers the records, where to set them, and how to verify before you tell anyone the site is live.
What you need#
- Your server's IPv4 address (and IPv6 if it has one), from the cloud portal or the welcome email.
- Access to the DNS host for the domain: MyNobull if the domain is registered here and uses our nameservers (see Manage DNS Records for Your Domain), otherwise Cloudflare, your registrar, or a control panel.
The records#
| Name | Type | Value | Purpose |
|---|---|---|---|
@ (the bare domain) | A | your IPv4 | example.com resolves to the server |
@ | AAAA | your IPv6 | same, over IPv6 (skip if you have no IPv6) |
www | CNAME | example.com. | www.example.com follows the bare domain |
app, cloud, etc. | A / AAAA | your IPs | one record per subdomain you serve |
Set the TTL low (300 seconds) while you are still moving things; raise it to an hour or more once stable. If your DNS host offers a proxy toggle (Cloudflare's orange cloud), turn it off until the site works directly, then decide.
Verify#
Wait a minute or two, then ask a public resolver so you are not fooled by your own cache:
dig +short A example.com @1.1.1.1
dig +short AAAA example.com @1.1.1.1
dig +short CNAME www.example.com @1.1.1.1
curl -I http://example.com/The first two should print your server's addresses; the last should return headers from your web server (or a connection refused if you have not started one yet, which is fine at this stage). Old records can linger in caches for as long as their previous TTL, so a change on a record that had a 24-hour TTL can take a day to be seen everywhere.
Then serve something and add TLS#
Open ports 80 and 443 in your firewall, and put a reverse proxy with a free certificate in front of your application; Reverse Proxy with Free TLS walks it end to end and needs the DNS from this page to be in place first.
Common snags#
- "It works for me but not for others"
- Your machine cached the new answer; theirs still holds the old one. Wait out the old TTL, or test from a public resolver as above.
- The bare domain works, www does not (or the reverse)
- One of the two records is missing. Both are needed; a CNAME for www is the tidy way to keep them in sync.
- Mail broke after pointing the domain
- You changed the nameservers instead of adding records, and the new DNS host has no MX records. Recreate MX, SPF, and any other records at the new host, or point only the A/AAAA records and leave nameservers where they were. See Change Nameservers.
- Game server address
- Players connect to IP:port. A plain A record hides the IP; an SRV record can hide the port for games that support it. See Sub-Users, Allocations, and Ports.
