One of the final parts of the onboarding process requires some modification to your domain's DNS configuration. This is normally hosted with your domain's registrar (where you've purchased your domain from), but in some cases may also be hosted by a third-party if you are assuming control of your existing domain from a previous hosting or technical service provider. It is important to understand who is responsible for hosting your website's DNS records, as you will require access to make the documented configuration changes. Implementing these records is broken down into two main steps: E-mail Validation and Website Launch. Below you will find some general examples of how you or a technical contact may go about adding these records to your domain's DNS and brief explanations of their purpose.
While it is strongly encouraged that you read this document entirely and follow these steps, it is difficult to encompass every scenario for DNS settings and configuration as DNS administration can vary largely from region and country. We recommend seeking advice from your Domain Registrar if you are unsure on how to carry out the following changes.
Note: SoCast does not provide DNS Support unless you've purchased our DNS Concierge Services.
In the event you require assistance with making your DNS changes to launch your SoCast website, please contact your DNS Panel Administrator or your Domain's Registrar directly for support.
While onboarding with a support specialist, you will receive a CSV file containing the necessary records you must create in your domain's DNS configuration:
These records are responsible for digitally signing any e-mails sent on behalf of your website's domain which ensures that they are delivered, unaltered from where they originated from. While these records are not a requirement for e-mail capabilities on the Socast platform, it is strongly advised that you still implement these records as they can impact deliverability of any e-mail based communications. From our example CSV file above (or your own CSV file if you are following along), you will need to make note of the following information:
The Socast platform checks for valid e-mail verification DNS records daily. If everything has been configured correctly, there should be no action required or any further communication from Socast on the topic. However, if there is an issue with a record's configuration (ie. a record is removed by accident or added/modified incorrectly), the Socast platform will send out a daily automated e-mail to your site's administrative contact notifying them of this issue. It will also further offer the corrective steps to solve the issue (ie. what records are incorrect or missing and what their expected values should be). If you or somebody in your group has received one of these e-mails, it is likely that there is an issue with your configuration and you should the suggested steps as soon as possible to avoid any interruption in e-mail service.
At this point, you should already have the verification records for e-mail in place as proceeding any further will launch your Socast hosted website. If you are already using your domain to host your website on another provider, be advised that this will cause all traffic to stop reaching your old hosted content and will begin reaching your new Socast hosted content.
This part of the configuration process should be done carefully, as any improper configuration could result in outages or availability issues. From our example CSV file above (or your own CSV file if you are following along), you will need to make note of the following information:
You will similarly need to create DNS records as you did for e-mail, however you will first need to configure the platform to respond to the host names you want to use. In this example we will set our site up to respond to three (3) different host names (substitute your own values if you are following along):
You'll note that by default Socast only provides DNS examples for the root domain (ie. ourtestdomain.com) and the "www" prefix (ie. www.ourtestdomain.com). These are just suggested host names as you are free to modify, add or remove host names as required. In our example we will create the two suggested hostnames (ourtestdomain.com and www.ourtestdomain.com) but also follow similar instructions to create an additional domain (news.ourtestdomain.com).
To configure the platform to use these names:
You should also be sure to set the TTL value for these records to a value under 1 hour to allow these changes to propagate around the internet quickly.
The Socast platform offers a number of security related features that are automatically implemented once a site has been successfully launched. These features and countermeasures ensure a safe, secure browsing experience which clients engage with any Socast hosted content.
The Socast platform is secured by a web application firewall that has been designed to respond and defend against many common types of attacks on the internet such as (but not limited to):
Because Socast has taken these measures, it is requested that any customers who are using a third-party vendor for this type of security opt to disable these features as they can cause false positives and impact your website's availability. A good example of this would be Cloudflare's website proxy. If your website's DNS is hosted or routed through a service like Cloudflare to protect against things like denial of service, you will need to be certain that this traffic is not in any way routed or modified by Cloudflare as it will trigger Socast's own application firewall and prevent access to your website(s).
All Socast platform customers are provided with an ongoing, free SSL certificate to secure their websites with. This is done automatically and supports the adding and removing of additional website aliases (providing they are properly configured in your DNS settings). Upon either launching a new site or modifying an existing site's host names in the backend and all the required DNS records are in place, an SSL certificate will be automatically generated (or modified if already existing) to include the names configured in your Website Settings. Normally these changes can be seen within an hour, approximately - however if it has been longer than 12 hours and your site still isn't secured with an SSL certificate, please reach out to Client Services for further investigation. The certificate can only ever contain names that resolve via DNS to the Socast platform. So if there are any host names configured in the backend that have either been removed from your DNS configuration or are otherwise absent, these names will not be included in your SSL certificate.