DNS Setup for Private-Label Partners

As a Webvanta private-label partner, you have special DNS requirements.

Developing Sites at Subdomains

In order to be able to create new sites at clientname.yourdomain.com, and have that domain name work without any DNS setup, you need a wildcard DNS entry, so that *.yourdomain.com points to the Webvanta servers.

At the end of June, 2014, Webvanta moved onto the Amazon Web Services infrastructure. This requires a change in your DNS setup.

Note: We are providing a forwarding server for our old IP address through the end of September, 2014, so you have time to make these changes.

With our current implementation on AWS, you must use a CNAME record, not an A record, for the wildcard. Unfortunately, not all DNS services support wildcard CNAME entries.

Assuming that you currently have a wildcard A record pointing to Webvanta, the best path forward is to:

1. Delete the wildcard A record that is pointing to our old IP address.
2. Create a wildcard CNAME record, with a value of www.webvanta.com.

If your DNS provider supports wildcard CNAME records, that's all you need to do.

Alternative Approaches

If your DNS provider does not support wildcard CNAMEs, then you have four options:

1. Wait until mid-August, when will deploy our own forwarding server so we can provide a numeric IP address.
2. Change your DNS provider. We like DNS Made Easy, which supports wildcard CNAMEs and many other features. GoDaddy also supports wildcard CNAMEs, so using them as your DNS provider makes sense if your domains are registered there.
3. Create a CNAME record each time you create a new site. If you choose this approach, remember that each time you create a new site, you'll need to create a corresponding CNAME record. The hostname for the CNAME record is the subdomain (e.g., clientname), and the value of the CNAME should be www.webvanta.com.
4. Don't use a private-label domain. You can use clientname.webvanta.com for sites under development, while still having a private-labeled control panel.

Setting DNS for Final Domain Names

When you are ready to make a site respond to the customer's domain name, follow the instructions here:

Setting Your DNS

It is best to use www.webvanta.com as the value of the CNAME. If you don't want to expose the Webvanta name in the DNS settings, you can use www.yourdomain.com, if your domain is hosted on Webvanta, or subdomain.yourdomain.com, if you have a CNAME set up for "subdomain" that points to Webvanta. (This slightly slows down access, since two DNS lookups are required instead of one.)