Customized Web Addresses (URLs)
Default Web Address (URL)
By default, your business uses the following web address (URL)
where
For example, let's assume your business name is Print Destiny and the default web address for Print Destiny's big customer, MegaBurger, might be:
Custom Web Addresses (URL)
Cyrious Online permits you to define a single custom URL, like printco.com, signsonline.com, printdestiny.com, etc. Once you specify your custom URL all of your websites can then utilize this URL instead of our default .cyriousonline.com URL. Your new websites would then be reachable by visiting the customer website prefix added to your custom URL. (e.g., megaburger.printdestiny.com).
where
For example, the default web address for PrintCo's big customer, MegaBurger, might be:
Because all Cyrious Online websites are secure, if you wish to utilize a custom URL you must also obtain a website security certificate (SSL) for that website.
The steps necessary to obtain your web address (domain) are:
- Confirm the domain name you want to use is free or that your current URL will work.
- If necessary, purchase the domain name from an Internet Domain Registrar.
- Create a custom domain request in the Web Addresses business settings page
- Set up the DNS
- Purchase a “wildcard” SSL Certification from a major certificate provider.
- Complete your registration on Cyrious and upload the certificate.
Each of these steps is detailed below.
Confirm the web address you want to use is free or that your current URL will work.
Using your current Web Address
If your Company's current website is www.printdestiny.com, your first thought is probably to use that as the default URL for your customer websites. While this may be possible, Cyrious cautions you to investigate this carefully. If you elect this option, you will have some of your websites (like www) going to one server and others (for Cyrious Online) going to another. The service that directs a browser to the correct site is called the Domain Name Service, or DNS for short, and it handles this type of functionality all the time. You are already using DNS whether you know it or not, and setting up the basic routing like this is not a problem for you web “expert”.
However, each time you add a new customer website in Cyrious Online, the DNS has to handle a new path. For example, when you create the Megaburger customer website, the DNS needs to know that megaburger.printdestiny.com now needs to be redirected to Cyrious Online and not to your business' website at www.printdestiny.com. Herein lies the complexity. Some DNS providers, such as Amazon Web Service Route 53 or GoDaddy, allow you to set up a “wildcard” route, so that if any new prefix is introduced it will automatically send the traffic to Cyrious Online. If you use a DNS provider like this - you are all set. Many DNS providers, however, don't support wildcard routing and require you to explicitly set up each prefix individually. This means that when you create a new customer website in Cyrious, you have to contact your web expert to set up a new DNS prefix. This not only adds expense, but time to the process.
In summary, if your DNS provider does not support wildcard routing on subdomains (prefixes), Cyrious recommends you use a different URL or change providers before using it for Cyrious Online.
Using a new Web Address
Most of the websites that allow you to purchase website domains have a mechanism for you to check if they are available. Use one of these (or another) to confirm if the website you want is available:
You may use .COM, .NET, or .ORG domain extensions in Cyrious Online. Other domain extensions may work, but are not recommended.
Purchase the Web Domain
Once you receive the confirmation email from Cyrious with your SSL registration code block, go ahead and purchase the web domain if you do not already own it. You may purchase the domain from any major domain registration service.
Create a custom domain request in the Web Addresses business settings page
Once you have determined which domain address you want to use, log in to your employee website, and navigate to the settings page.
In the Advanced Settings section, find the “Configure Custom Web Addresses” link
Click the button to add a new Custom Domain request
We highly recommend using the option which works for all your websites. This option is much lower maintenance as any new websites that you add will work without having to purchase a new SSL certificate or set up any more custom domain entries.
Fill out the fields in section 2 with the following information:
These fields must exactly match the entries you use when registering your URL and/or SSL certification, so please record the values you enter.
- Web Address — The full web address — or URL — for which you plan to use. (note: If you are using the all websites option, the * is already in place, you just need to fill in the domain )
- Organization — The name in which your business is legally registered. The organization must be the legal registrant of the domain name in the certificate request. If you are enrolling as an individual, enter the certificate requestor's name in the Organization field, and the Doing Business As (DBA) name in the Organizational Unit field.
- Organizational Unit — Use this field to differentiate between divisions within an organization. For example, “Engineering” or “Human Resources.”
- City/Locality — The full name of the city in which your organization is registered/located. Do not abbreviate.
- State/Province — The full name of state or province where your organization is located. Do not abbreviate. (e.g. North Dakota, British Columbia)
- Country — two-letter ISO format country code for the country in which your organization is legally registered (e.g. US, CA)
Click the Add Web Address button to continue
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Upon filling this information, you will receive an email with an attached Certificate Signing Request (CSR) file. This file will be necessary when you purchase your SSL certificate.
You will be returned to the screen showing your Custom Domain Request. A button is available to re-download your CSR file if you are unable to find it in your email.
Set up the DNS
Every device on the Internet uses numeric addresses (called IP addresses) that can somewhat be thought of as the “coordinates” of the device.Computer experts, just go with this metaphor. Yes - it's not correct. But its understandable and conceptually close enough. When your computer is looking for a website, it looks up the “coordinates” from the Domain Name Service, or DNS. The DNS is the “phone book of the Internet”.
There are lots of DNS providers, and unfortunately they all have different ways to be set up. Cyrious can not advise you on how to set up your provider. However, the rules for the lookup are well defined.
If your DNS provider supports wildcard entries, you only need to make one entry:
Type | Entry | Address | Use | ||||
CNAME | * | cyrious.cloudapp.net | Cyrious Online |
CNAME | cyrious | cyrious.cloudapp.net | Employee Website | ||||
CNAME | store | cyrious.cloudapp.net | Public Website | ||||
CNAME | cyrious.cloudapp.net | Website for | |||||
CNAME | cyrious.cloudapp.net | Website for | |||||
CNAME | cyrious.cloudapp.net | Website for |
where .. are replaced with the website prefixes for the customer websites in Cyrious Online.
Purchase a SSL Certificate
As described above, you must purchase a Website Security Certificate (SSL) if you use a custom URL (web address). This gives Internet users confidence that their sensitive information is being securely handled by Cyrious Online. For system integrity reasons, Cyrious Online will not utilize any domain name without a valid SSL certificate installed.
You may purchase an SSL certificate from many different sources, but it must meet these requirements:
- It must be a WILDCARD SSL certificate supporting unlimited subdomains (website prefixes).
- It should be from a well established certificate provider or older web browsers may not recognize it.
- When asked, please select Signature Algorithm of SHA-1 and a Private Key Length of 2048 bits.
More information on the largest providers can be found here.
When you purchase the SSL Certificate, be sure to obtain a WILDCARD certificate.
wildcard_ssl.png_captionexample_from_godaddy.com
You will need the CSR you obtained from Cyrious Online above in order to activate the registration.
Once you have completed the SSL Certificate purchase and registration, you will obtain a file (via download or email). Please export a certificate file for Windows Server, IIS 7 or IIS 8. This file is your certificate. It is uploaded in the next step by Cyrious Online to activate your custom web address.
Complete your registration on Cyrious
To complete your registration with Cyrious Online, navigate back to the Web Address settings page, and click the “Upload the SSL Certificate button” on the Custom Domain Request you wish to complete.
Choose the cert file from where it was downloaded to your machine. ( It may be inside a compressed file from the Certificate Authority, if so extract the file to a local folder, then choose the cert file.)
Once your certificate has been submitted it will be installed into the Cyrious Online system and working within one business day.
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