Skip to content

External Domains

To serve content to end-users using your own domain, instead of the one provided by the service out of the box, you need to configure one or more external domains.

Apex domain support

Warning

Due to technical limitations in how DNS works, it is currently NOT supported to serve traffic to end users on the apex domain.

What this means is that you are required to use a sub-domain, such as stream.yourdomain.tld instead of yourdomain.tld.

Apex domain redirect

Warning

This is currently not supported within RedBee OTT product.

If you would like users to be able to type in yourdomain.tld instead of the configured sub-domain stream.yourdomain.tld, you configure your server at yourdomain.tld to redirect users to the sub-domain.
Sometimes this is offered by the DNS registrar for the domain.


Configure External domain

Follow these instructions to use a name chosen by you to serve content to users.

Customer Portal

1. Navigate to domain settings

  1. In the context menu (on top), select:
    • Customer
    • Business unit
  2. Using service menu (on the left), navigate to:
    • SETTINGS -> SERVICE SETTINGS
  3. Expand the CUSTOM DOMAINS panel

Custom domains list

2. Add a domain to the service

  1. Click the CREATE button
  2. Fill in the form:
    • Select EXTERNAL as DOMAIN TYPE
    • Fill in the desired domains name in FQDN
    • Unselect Primary if you do not wish to use this domain as default
  3. Press the SAVE button

Custom domain form

3. Gather DNS record information

Now it is time to gather all the information required to set up the service records.

  1. Write down the built-in Domain name for the service.
    Built-in domain location
  2. Refresh the page until the state for the configured domain changes from REQUESTED to CREATED (usually takes a minute or two).
    Added domain details button location
  3. Reveal the details of the configured domain by clicking its Details button in the list.
    Custom domain state in requested
  4. Take note of the RECORD NAME and VALUES for the configured domain.
    DNS configuration target locations

External DNS management

Due to the wide variety of DNS providers, and their individual interfaces, this section only provides general information.

Currently, only CNAME records are supported for external domains (please get in touch with us should you require A records).

4. Create service records

To serve traffic on the domain you configured for the service previously in the guide, create the CNAME record below.

  1. Create a CNAME
    • Name: Usually host part of domain (until the first dot)
    • Target: Name of built-in domain for service (the one starting with bu-)

Example

Name: streaming
Target: bu-xyz123.redbee.live

5. Create service TLS record

In order to serve pages encrypted over HTTPS, it is required to issue a certificate for the domain you want to use.
To authenticate yourself as the owner of the domain during this process, create the CNAME described here.

  1. Create a CNAME
    • Name: Host part of RECORD NAME from details of configured record above (typically _acme-challenge)
    • Target: VALUES from details of configured record above (triple left-click + copy to clipboard + paste it)

Example

Name: _acme-challenge
Target: mou8whsocpiz1cheps.fastly-validations.com

Verify setup

It should now be possible to navigate to the configured domain in your browser.


Troubleshooting

It can take a little while for the new DNS records to propagate, TLS certificate to be issued and CDN edge nodes to be updated.

Usually, this takes less than 10 minutes, but can take as long as 60 minutes.