Where do we buy domains?
In this guide we use Namecheap as a registrar, but you can pick any other company.
Let's say we already bought a domain.
We go here: https://ap.www.namecheap.com/domains/list/
Find a domain that we need and click "Manage".
A domain need to be associated to a DNS service, by settings DNS records.
For example, here we already have Digital Ocean DNS servers.
We move most of our DNS hosting to Hetzner so let's change it here.
Let's go to Hetzner DNS dashboard.
Click "Add new zone".
- Enter the domain name
- turn off auto scanning for records (optionally)
- click "Continue"
Get these records of type "NS" and set them for this domain in the namecheap dashboard.
When done, click this tiny green checkbox to confirm the change.
After you save it, it can take a while (from a few minutes up to 24h) for changes to take effect.
You can use the command whois jsbullet.com in your terminal to find out if Name Server(s) records are changed.
Now, let's go to an application in Appliku for which you want to add a custom domain.
Go to "Application Settings" -> "Domains tab".
It shows the IP of the server. Copy this IP and go to Hetzner DNS dashboard.
Create "A record" with this IP.
Set some low value for TTL (time to live), e.g. 600 seconds or so.
Name should be @ if you just want to use jsbullet.com (here should be your domain).
In case of any subdomain, it would be the subdomain e.g. www for www.jsbullet.com
After you have added your records, click Continue
Now, going back Appliku dashboard, click "Add domain".
It will give an error because NS records didn't change yet.
Appliku WILL NOT retry adding the domain automatically. You need to "delete" the domain from the application and try again later, in a few hours.
When NS records are finally updated you will see this in the whois jsbullet.com output:
We can now add our domain to the application.
So, all is done. Enjoy!