Custom Domains & SSL

Note

Custom domains require a paid plan. On the free tier, your application is accessible via a *.applikuapp.com subdomain only. See Billing & Plans for details.

Every application deployed with Appliku automatically receives a subdomain at YOUR_APP_NAME.applikuapp.com. To use your own domain, follow the steps below.

Step 1: Configure DNS Records

You need to point your domain to the IP address of the server where your application is running.

In this guide we use Namecheap as a registrar and Hetzner DNS, but you can use any registrar and DNS provider.

Find your domain in your registrar

Go to your domain registrar (e.g., Namecheap) and find the domain you want to use.

A domain needs to be associated with a DNS service by setting DNS records.

Set up DNS hosting

If you're using Hetzner DNS, go to the Hetzner DNS dashboard and click "Add new zone".

1. Enter the domain name
2. Turn off auto scanning for records (optionally)
3. Click "Continue"

Get the NS records and set them for this domain in the Namecheap dashboard. When done, click the green checkbox to confirm the change.

After you save it, it can take a while (from a few minutes up to 24 hours) for changes to take effect.

You can use the command whois yourdomain.com in your terminal to find out if Name Server records have changed.

Step 2: Create an A Record

Go to your application in Appliku, then to "Application Settings" → "Domains" tab.

It shows the IP of the server. Copy this IP and go to your DNS dashboard.

Create an A record with this IP: - Set a low TTL value (e.g., 600 seconds) - Name should be @ if you want to use the root domain (e.g., yourdomain.com)

For a subdomain, use the subdomain name instead (e.g., www for www.yourdomain.com).

After you have added your records, click Continue.

Step 3: Add Domain in Appliku

Going back to the Appliku dashboard, click "Add domain".

If NS records haven't propagated yet, it will give an error. Appliku will NOT retry adding the domain automatically. You need to delete the domain from the application and try again later, in a few hours.

When NS records are finally updated you will see the new records in the whois output:

Now add your domain to the application.

Appliku will automatically provision a Let's Encrypt SSL certificate for your custom domain.

Domain Name Rules

Appliku accepts a domain only if it is a plain host name:

• Use only the letters a-z, the digits 0-9, hyphens (-) and dots (.).
• The name must have two labels or more, for example example.com or app.example.com. A label must not start or end with a hyphen, and it can have 63 characters at most.
• The full name can have 240 characters at most.
• Wildcard domains (*.example.com) are not supported.
• Enter an international domain name in its punycode form (xn--...), for example xn--bcher-kva.example for bücher.example.

Appliku changes upper case letters to lower case and removes one dot at the end. Thus App.Example.com. is saved as app.example.com. Appliku compares names after this change, so you cannot add the same domain two times with a different case.

If a value does not follow these rules, Appliku refuses it with this message: "Enter a valid domain name, for example app.example.com. ..." The same rules apply in the dashboard, in the API and in the CLI.

Note

A domain that you added before these rules existed can have a name that does not follow them (for example a wildcard). Appliku does not write an nginx configuration for such a name, and does not get or renew its certificate. Delete the domain and add a name that follows the rules.

Automatic uptime monitoring

If your team is connected to UptimeFor.me, custom domains automatically get an HTTP monitor and an SSL certificate monitor. See Uptime Monitoring.