Eligibility

We ask that groups requesting custom domains join the KFG at any membership level to help support free, open academic infrastructure. Click here to learn more about our Membership options.

Subdomains

To use a subdomain of a domain you already own (e.g., yoursubdomain.yourdomain.org), you’ll need to login to your registrar or DNS host for your domain and add a CNAME record with the following parameters (replacing yoursubdomain with the subomain you want to use, but keeping custom-domain-1.pubpub.org exactly as written for the target):

For instructions on how to set your domain’s CNAME records, visit the URL of your registrar or DNS host.

Once you’ve made these changes, send us an email letting us know so that we can finish the process on our end. In your email, please include:

• The subdomain you’ll be using

• The original PubPub URL to your community (e.g., community.pubpub.org)

• A screenshot of your DNS setup from your registrar/DNS host showing your configuration

Top-Level Domains

Due to the nature of DNS, setting up a top-level domain (e.g., www.yourdomain.com) is a bit more complex. If you don’t already own your domain, we recommend buying it using a registrar that provides CNAME flattening, which will allow you to securely point your apex domain to PubPub. Our preferred registrar is Cloudflare, but you can also use registrars from this list.

If you already own your domain, and your registrar does not support CNAME flattening, we recommend you switch to using Cloudflare as your DNS host, which is simple and free. To make this change, signup for a Cloudflare account, add your name, and follow their instructions for pointing your domain’s name servers to Cloudflare.

Once you’re setup on Cloudflare (or another registrar/DNS host that supports CNAME flattening), you should delete any root (@ or yourdomain.org) A or CNAME records, and replace them with the following two CNAME records (keep custom-domain-1.pubpub.org exactly as written, but change www.yourdomain.org to your domain, including www at the front):

Once you’ve made these changes, send us an email letting us know so that we can finish the process on our end. In your email, please include:

• The top-level domain you’ll be using

• The original PubPub URL to your community (e.g., community.pubpub.org)

• A screenshot of your DNS setup from your registrar/DNS host showing your configuration

Cloudflare

In Cloudflare, CNAME flattening should automatically be turned on. You can verify this by clicking on the DNS tab and making sure the CNAME Flattening is set to “Flatten CNAME at Root.” But you’ll still need to redirect your apex domain (i.e. yourdomain.org) to point to the www CNAME you just setup (i.e. www.yourdomain.org). To do this, you’ll need to add a new Page Rule to Cloudflare, with the following settings (replacing yourdomain.org in both cases with the domain you want to use, but keeping the rest exactly as written):

The page new rule should look like this (with your domain in place of yourdomain.org in both places):

Finally, you’ll need to check the SSL/TLS settings on Cloudflare to make sure that your domain is forwarding its certificate properly. It should be set to full.

Other Registrars/DNS Hosts

If you’re using another registrar or DNS host with CNAME flattening, you will likely need to add another DNS record. For example, at Namecheap you would add the following record (replacing www.yourdomain.org with your domain, including the www):

Heroku provides CNAME flattening instructions for a number of compatible registrars/DNS hosts.

Once you’ve made these changes, send us an email letting us know so that we can finish the process on our end. In your email, please include:

• The domain you’ll be using

• The original PubPub URL to your community (e.g., community.pubpub.org)

• A screenshot of your DNS setup from your registrar/DNS host showing your configuration

Getting Help

Once you setup your domain, it can take 24-48 hours for DNS servers across the world to update with your new information. So if your domain doesn’t work right away, that’s to be expected. Please wait 24 hours and try again. If your domain still isn’t working after 24 hours, please write to us letting us know. In your email, please include:

• The domain or subdomain you’re trying to setup

• The original PubPub URL to your community (e.g., community.pubpub.org)

• The registrar or DNS host you’re using

• A screenshot of your DNS setup from your registrar/DNS host showing your configuration