By default your Viewcastle web app is assigned a 6 character subdomain of viewcastle.tv. For example, t1kro4.viewcastle.tv, where t1kro4 is your web app's unique subdomain (we will refer to this unique subdomain as your app's app_id going forward in this article). However, you can setup your own domain making it easier for your audience to access your web app.

Most likely you have your own domain, such as yourdomain.com (replacing 'yourdomain' with your actual domain name), that you'd like your audience to visit at www.yourdomain.com. To do this, you need to point www.yourdomain.com at your Viewcastle web app's default subdomain that we described above. Keep in mind that if you already have a website at www.yourdomain.com that you DON'T want to replace, then you'll need to either purchase a new domain or use a subdomain other than 'www'. If you'd like to use a subdomain other than 'www', such as tv.yourdomain.com, then jump ahead to Using a Subdomain below.

To continue with using 'www', you'll need to create the following DNS record:

Type: CNAME

Host: www

Destination: [app_id].viewcastle.tv (replace [app_id] with your web app's unique subdomain)

TTL: 1 hour (3600 seconds)

It can take a few minutes or even a few hours for your changes to propagate around the world. You can check your URL here to see its status throughout various locations across the globe. When it has finished propagating, each location should resolve www.yourdomain.com to [app_id].viewcastle.tv.

Your root domain is simply yourdomain.com without the 'www' in front. Most likely you'll want users to be able to type this into their browsers and still access your Viewcastle web app. There are two ways to achieve this: 1) redirecting your root domain to 'www' (preferred) or 2) pointing your root domain to [app_id].viewcastle.tv.

Ideally you'll want your root domain to redirect to www.yourdomain.com. This means when a user types yourdomain.com the URL will automatically get replaced with www.yourdomain.com. Most modern browsers will do this by default, but just in case, you'll want to consult your domain hosting platform on setting up a redirect for your root domain. This will ensure that even if the browser doesn't do it, your domain server will redirect to www.yourdomain.com anyway. We've provided some generic instructions for setting up redirects under our Common Domain Hosting Platform Instructions section below.

If your domain hosting platform does not have a way to setup redirects, most likely they will allow you to create a CNAME record for your root domain as an alternative solution. What this means is you can simply point your root domain directly to [app_id].viewcastle.tv. The downside is if a user types yourdomain.com into their browser and their browser doesn't redirect them by default, then the URL will continue to read as yourdomain.com (without the 'www') but your web app will still load for them as expected. To do this, you'll need to create the following DNS record:

Type: CNAME

Host: @ (some domain hosting platforms will require leaving this blank instead)

Destination: [app_id].viewcastle.tv (replace [app_id] with your web app's unique subdomain)

TTL: 1 hour (3600 seconds)

Again it can take a few minutes to a few hours for this change to propagate around the world. Just like when you configured 'www', you can check your URL here to see its propagation status. Be sure to search for yourdomain.com without the 'www' this time when checking the status.

If you already have an existing website at 'www' and still plan to use it, but you want to use the same domain for your Viewcastle web app, then you'll just want to point a subdomain to your Viewcastle web app. Your subdomain could be anything, for example tv.yourdomain.com, where tv is your subdomain. To do this, you'll need to create the following DNS record:

Type: CNAME

Host: (Enter the name of your subdomain, this could be anything, for example: tv)

Destination: [app_id].viewcastle.tv (replace [app_id] with your web app's unique subdomain)

TTL: 1 hour (3600 seconds)

Thats it! You don't need to worry about your root domain when using a subdomain because your root domain should always redirect or point to whatever site you are already hosting at 'www'.

It can take a few minutes to a few hours for this change to propagate around the world. You can check your URL here to see its status throughout various locations across the globe. When it has finished propagating, each location should resolve to [app_id].viewcastle.tv.

Most likely when you first setup your custom domain, trying to go to https://www.yourdomain.com (using 'https' instead of 'http') will produce a warning that your website is not secure. In order to solve this, we, Viewcastle, will need to produce an SSL certificate for you. All you need to do is contact your account / onboarding representative and provide them with the full name of your domain or subdomain you are using for your Viewcastle web app. We will create an SSL certificate for you and keep it up to date on our end so there is nothing you need to manage yourself. The only thing you will be required to do is verify that you own the domain that we are certifying. For this, your rep will promptly respond with a set of instructions on how to verify that you own the domain. It will involve adding a couple additional CNAME records to your DNS, which by now you are a pro at! Once that step is complete, your site will be secure when using 'https'. 🎉

If you're using Godaddy as your domain hosting platform then follow these instructions in order to add a CNAME record to your DNS.

If you're using Godaddy as your domain hosting platform then follow these instructions in order to create a redirect (aka "forward") from your root domain URL to your 'www' URL.

If you're using NameCheap as your domain hosting platform then follow these instructions in order to add a CNAME record to your DNS.

If you're using NameCheap as your domain hosting platform then follow these instructions in order to create a redirect (aka "forward") from your root domain URL to your 'www' URL.