Resolved Custom Domains

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xfsgpr76

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I was wondering if custom domains is still available in free hosting? For example, I own a TLD but I would like to point a subdomain to my free joomla hosting so that people can type something like:

https://programming.mytld.com { this is a madeup url as example not a real one }

I wonder if there is a box or page where I could park a domain such as the one shown as example above so that after changing the cname the site can be found.

I hope somebody can answer yes or no and if the answer is yes point me ahelp doc where the full instructions are. In future, I'll prepare my own help section on my site and other users will be able to go there and find the answers to general everyday questions.

Thank you.
 

spacresx

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@ xfsgpr76
x10hosting itself does not support https on free accounts anymore.
some have used cloudflare as a workaround, but i dont use it.

as for custom domains, i believe you can use one,
but the DNS has to be edited at your custom domain,
not on your x10 site. so it points to your server/accounts ip.

maybe staff will reply with the required information for you.
i suggest you wait for them.
 

xfsgpr76

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@ xfsgpr76
x10hosting itself does not support https on free accounts anymore.
some have used cloudflare as a workaround, but i dont use it.

as for custom domains, i believe you can use one,
but the DNS has to be edited at your custom domain,
not on your x10 site. so it points to your server/accounts ip.

maybe staff will reply with the required information for you.
i suggest you wait for them.

Yes I am using Cloudflare and all my sub-domains at Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure, GitHub, Netflix etc are all working and all have SSL thanks to Cloudflare and Let's Encrpt but here at x10 hosting i have created a Add-on domain and all I am getting is: "Apache is functioning normally". I have created an A record pointing to 198.91.81.15 but there must be something at x10host that I need to do to make sure it matches. i have created a Domain Pointer and entered the full address. I just have to wait until sometime has elapsed when the DNS info is propagated. I give 24 hours because Cloudflare is pretty good at these things.
 

garrettroyce

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You can query your DNS using a non-caching utility such as MXToolbox, which is my favorite. https://mxtoolbox.com/SuperTool.aspx Select DNS records from the drop down menu or simply type "a:your-domain-name-goes-here" and it will show the A records straight from your registrar, which no caching.

A domain pointer will make your-site.tld equivalent to your-site.x10.mx, in example. An addon domain would make your-site.tld a separate site.

Make sure to clear your browser cache as well. Sometimes your browser will cache the generic "Apache blah blah" message and not show your website. Also make sure that some file exists in the public_html folder for your addon domain, that the permissions of the file are correct, and if you don't want to type your-site.tld/filename.html that the file is named index.html, index.php, etc.
 

xfsgpr76

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Make sure to clear your browser cache as well. Sometimes your browser will cache the generic "Apache blah blah" message and not show your website. Also make sure that some file exists in the public_html folder for your addon domain, that the permissions of the file are correct, and if you don't want to type your-site.tld/filename.html that the file is named index.html, index.php, etc.

It looks like the dns is now propaged but X10host is not serving. the link to the site, which is still at an embroynic stage, is this:

<https://programming.mytechsite.gq/>

this should point to: http://mainsite.x10host.com
 

garrettroyce

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If you use a pointer, that should work. If you use an addon domain, you should add files to its folder. You can consider using an addon then redirecting via .htaccess, HTML, or javascript.
 

xfsgpr76

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OK it seems to work. However, when I click on the custom domain link, it shows:

<http://www.mainsite.x10host.com>

What changes do I need to make so that it shows https://programming.mytechsite.gq

By not showing the correct url, the security feature is not implemented so clearly something else I need to change.

To make it this work, I have simply changed the dns servers to ns1.xx.xx and ns2.xx.xx (can't remember exactly without going to cloudflare's UI. The security is correctly configured on cloudflare because other websites have the necessary https://. Does anybody know or remember what else needs to changed or what configuration is required rather than ns1 and ns2. The A record didn't work so I removed it and cloudflare won't allow it if NS1 and NS2 is present.

Thanks so I need to work on this to see if I can get the https.
 

spacresx

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the site works using http not https. (but guessing you knew that)
id say something in your joomla site still refers to https.
id say the problem is with your cloudflare settings.
 

xfsgpr76

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the site works using http not https. (but guessing you knew that)
id say something in your joomla site still refers to https.
id say the problem is with your cloudflare settings.

I think I'll stay with this for now until some other ideas flashes up and when the xhost servers are working properly when somebody will think of installing free versions of let'sencrypt <https://letsencrypt.org/>.

Enough time has been spent on this. Me thinks so. How to mark this as Resolved?
 

garrettroyce

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letsencrypt works great for a good number of domains per server, but I think it would be very difficult for x10 with tens of thousands of users on many servers. It's something that could go on a wishlist, but since Cloudflare offers a free solution to this already, I think the admins would not spend a lot of time on what could be a tricky feature.
 

spacresx

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@ garrettroyce
I used to use letsencrypt before they merged with the other people.
now they limit the free certificates which dont cover subdomains.

i had to look somewhere else for free plans/3 month certificates
that also work on subdomains. (i use on another site for ssl)
just saying.
 

xfsgpr76

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but since Cloudflare offers a free solution to this already, I think the admins would not spend a lot of time on what could be a tricky feature.

Cloudflare is no longer supported on free hosting on XHosting. I have looked at these two posts:

<https://x10hosting.com/support/guides/enable-cloudflare?from_search=12904179>
<https://x10hosting.com/support/general/cpanel-themes>

the first article tells you to switch to cPanelX3 while the second article tells you how to switch but cPanel is no longer supported so the user can't switch and therefore CloudFlare cannot be enabled in "DiretAdmin".

Of course, I can understand that cPanel was becoming expensive so free users can't have it but some free hosts have managed to offer Let'sEncrypt and some are even offering a space to paste the certifate that people can get free of charge from, you guessed it, CloudFlare. I just generated one for this website but there is no way to paste it so it is of no use.

I think the engineers could find some time AFTER they have figured out how best to configure the free servers so that free users who are mostly hobby and enthusiast users can have something. Google is not indexing sites that don't have valid certificate and this, in my opinion is not a good thing. I am thinking of branding xHosting on my site so that visitors can visit the premium xhosting site but they need to find my site on Google first. anyway, this is a side issue for now and we may be counting the chickens before they are hatched.

Thanks everybody for now as this is resolved for now.
 

garrettroyce

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Those guides are outdated. Cloudflare SSL using flexible mode works. You can find tutorials on their site. For this to work, you must use your own domain name (eg, NOT .x10.mx).
 
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