Domain Name

A domain name is in essence a human-friendly alias for an IP address. It allows your users to easily reach your website without having to remember your server's IP address. Your server's IP address may also change in the future.

Technically it is possible to have a website without owning a domain name. In this case your website might be using a subdomain of a free hosting provider, e.g. epicfantasyforge.wordpress.com. However for full control and for a professional looking website it is recommended to purchase your own domain name.

This guide recommends you to purchase your own domain name rather than using a subdomain of a hosting provider.

Registering a domain name

To register a domain name you will need to use a domain name registrar. The registrar recommended by this guide is Cloudflare. Cloudflare offers many other domain related services such as DDoS protection and TLS certificates.

To start, create an account on Cloudflare. Once you have an account go your "Account Home", open the "Domain Registration" accordion and click "Register Domains". Then enter your desired domain name and click "Search":

You should now see if your desired domain name is available and at what price. If the domain name is available and the price fits within your budget click on the "Purchase" button. Alternatively if the domain name is already taken or too expensive you can consider using different domain name.

Now fill in the form with your information and payment details:

After successful payment you have now registered your domain name:

DNS records

Later in the guide, once we have a server to host your website, we will configure DNS records in Cloudflare to point your domain to your server's IP address. DNS stands for Domain Name System. A DNS record is a mapping between a domain name to an IP address.

Adding a DNS record for your user facing documentation can be found in the Custom Domain section of the User Facing Documentation page in this guide.

Adding a DNS record for your technical documentation can be found in the Custom Domain section of the Technical Documenation page in this guide.

Adding a DNS record for your website can be found in the DNS records section of the Infrastructure as Code page in this guide.

DDoS protection

When configuring a DNS record in Cloudflare, you get the option to proxy the DNS entry. What this means is that when the general public tries to resolve your domain name to an IP address, the DNS entry will resolve to a Cloudflare IP address. The Cloudflare machine at that IP address will then proxy your user's requests to your actual server, i.e. the IP address actually configured in the DNS entry in Cloudflare. In this way your server's IP address can remain secret and is not known to the general public.

When an attacker tries to launch a DDoS attack against your website, they will actually be attacking Cloudflare and not your server since your server's IP is not known to the attacker. Cloudflare most likely has much better protections in place to handle DDoS and other malicious attacks than your server. Therefore it is recommended to enable the proxy when configuring your DNS entry in Cloudflare. More information about this form of protection can be found in the Cloudflare Proxy status documentation.

We will be enabling this DDoS protection in a later section of this guide as you don't have a server yet.