The phrase
going live refers to making a Pressero site available on a custom domain name address. Once you have created a site on a Pressero temporary URL address, it is essentially live in that you can access the site in a web browser, but it is not live on your custom domain name address. You can run your sites on your Pressero temporary URL addresses on the pressero.com domain for as long as you like. Many clients keep their sites on those addresses, but in most cases, you will want to take sites live on custom domain names of your choice.
CUSTOM DOMAIN NAMES
If you don't already own a domain name, you can register one through one of the popular services like Godaddy or Network Solutions, Pressero does not offer domain name registration services.
DNS POINTER VALUES
DNS for any domain addresses that will be serving Pressero sites needs to be changed to point to the Pressero servers that your account is hosted on. It is possible to have your root website running on one service, and Pressero sites running on subdomain addresses on the same domain name, it just depends on how the DNS records on the domain are set up.
AHOST POINTER VALUES
Values for AHOST records are shown below, please check your address you use to login to Pressero against this list below. If you do not see your login address listed, please contact our support so we can confirm the correct AHOST values for your account.
US clients: admin.chi.v6.pressero.com: 65.60.63.98
Singapore clients: admin-sg.pressero.com: 117.20.40.234
Amsterdam clients: admin.ams.pressero.com: 198.20.103.227
CNAME POINTER VALUES
Values for CNAME records are shown below, please check your address you use to login to Pressero against this list below. If you do not see your login address listed, please contact our support department so we can confirm the correct CNAME values for your account.
US clients: admin.chi.v6.pressero.com: chi.pressero.com
Singapore clients: admin-sg.pressero.com: sg.pressero.com
Amsterdam clients: admin.ams.pressero.com: ams.pressero.com
USING CNAME VERSUS AHOST RECORDS
You can use an ahost or a cname record when creating or changing a DNS entry on a domain name for a subdomain record that is not the root record. The root record will always be an ahost record, but the other records could be ahost or cname addresses. Using either an ahost or a cname generally is a matter of preference, but there are reasons to use cname records whenever possible when creating site addresses.
LIMITATIONS USING AHOST RECORDS
When setting up a new domain name, you generally want the root and the www records directing to the same destination. If you are setting up mydomainname.com to point to your Pressero site, then you also will want to have www.mydomainname.com pointing to your Pressero site.
The root address (mydomainname.com without the www) must be directed using the ahost pointer value, which is always a numeric IP address, and will always need to be manually updated if the ahost numeric address DNS pointer for Pressero changes. But the www record for the new domain name, like www.mydomainname.com, can be created as a cname record.
USING CNAME RECORDS FOR VERSATILITY
The cname record pointer is a value (chi.v6.pressero.com, sg.pressero.com, etc.) that is assigned a particular IP address in our DNS by the Aleyant infrastructure department. If the IP address of the Pressero servers needs to change to a different IP address (such as in the case of an extreme disaster recovery situation) then we can change where the cname pointer value directs to, and you would not have to update all the cname records on your domain manually to a new value.
CNAME RECORDS MAKE PRESSERO DNS CHANGES EASIER
If the other subdomain records on your domain (such as www) are using cname records and cname pointer values, then if there is a catastrophic situation that occurs with the service that requires a new IP address for the Pressero server, then those cname addresses will update automatically when the cname pointer is updated by our infrastructure staff on our DNS.
Meaning that your site can remain available on www.mydomainname.com in any extreme situations where we have to change DNS pointer values. The root address mydomainname.com will still need to be updated manually with the new address once that is available, but sites on subdomains like www that use cname records can update automatically with any updates to our DNS.
DIRECTING ADDRESSES ON DNS IS NOT THE SAME AS REDIRECTING OR FORWARDING
The DNS changes needed and described above direct domain address to Pressero. Many web hosting providers have redirect or forwarding features in addition to DNS management capability. These redirect and forwarding features are very different between various hosting providers and will most probably not work for serving your Pressero sites, you will need to make these changes in the DNS management area for your domain name address to direct that address to the Pressero servers.
DNS CHANGES NEED TO HAPPEN ON THE SERVICE WHERE THE DOMAIN NAME WAS REGISTERED
If you are not sure where your custom domain name was registered and is hosted, you can do a WHOIS on your domain name and check the nameserver values that are shown. The nameservers shown will belong to the service where DNS for your domain name is currently hosted. For example, if you registered your domain through Godaddy, you will see the Godaddy nameservers listed on your domain nameserver information when doing a whois check. The account that registered and controls your domain name needs to be used to make any changes to your domain's DNS settings.
YOU DO NOT HAVE TO CHANGE THE NAMESERVER VALUES FOR YOUR DOMAIN
A custom domain name that you have registered will have nameserver values that indicate the system where DNS for that domain is hosted. Do not change the nameserver values on your domain name. Pressero does offer DNS hosting for any domain name as a courtesy service, but having us host DNS for your domain name means that you will need to open tickets through our support department to make any changes to your DNS records. It is generally better to keep DNS hosting for your domain name on the service that the domain name was registered on and make any DNS changes on that service. Changing the nameserver settings on your domain name can also result in service outages for web, email, ftp, and other services.
SETTING YOUR PRESSERO SITE TO RESPOND TO YOUR CUSTOM DOMAIN ADDRESS
You will need to set up your Pressero site to use the domain address(es) the site is to be available on. This is done by adding the domain address URL for the site to the
Settings > Domains window. A site can have multiple addresses entered there to respond to, Indicating that one address is the primary address and enabling the redirect to primary settings means that a site can respond to multiple addresses and will always load for the user onto the primary address.
SETTING YOUR CUSTOM DOMAIN ADDRESS TO BE SECURE WHEN ADDED TO A SITE
When you are first setting up your Pressero site to be live on your custom domain address, do not enable the secure lock icon for that address before the site is actually coming up in the browser on your custom domain address. It is important to first get the site showing in the browser on your custom domain address. Once DNS changes have finished and the site is coming up, setting the lock icon for that address in
Settings > Domains will begin the process of getting a secure certificate for your site. But that process will take up to 48 hours, and the site will show an insecure warning until that process has completed. That change is best made late in the day, so that it can run overnight. If a site address has been set to be secure for more than 48 hours and is still showing a warning, please contact our support department.