Domain Registration & Hosting

DOMAIN REGISTRATION

• New domain request form.
• Registered through GoDaddy (UBS main account)
• Nameservers will point to Cloudflare

CLOUDFLARE

New Domain

• In Cloudflare, click “+ Add Site” and enter domain name to initiate adding the domain to Cloudflare.
• Cloudflare will pull DNS records for this domain automatically. Individually verify that each record is correct and that no records are missing. Ensure that a CNAME record of www is present and points to the correct IP address. Then, click Continue.
• Copy the Cloudflare nameservers add them to the GoDaddy domain registry for this domain.
• Once the domain is added to Cloudflare, click on the “Crypto” icon (top of page). In the dropdown for SSL select Full.
• Select the “Speed” icon (top of page). Check boxes to minify JavaScript, HTML, and CSS. Enable both options for Enable Accelerated Mobile Links.
• Under the “Caching” icon (top of page), set the Browser Cache Expiration to 1 month.
• Ultimately, DNS A records for domain should point to the LiquidWeb server where the site will be hosted (see below)

Subdomain

• In Cloudflare, choose the domain associated with the new subdomain.
• Click on the “DNS” icon (top of page) and add the subdomain A record.
• DNS A records for the subdomain should point to the LiquidWeb server where the site will be hosted (see below).

WEBSITE HOSTING

All sites hosted through LiquidWeb.

Secure Server

Liquid Web secure server: WebAppsSecure.unbridled.com To qualify for secure hosting, sites must meet ALL of the following criteria:

• Domain registered via GoDaddy main account. DNS handled via Cloudflare.
• SSL installed and https:// redirect established
• Public_html folder includes a .htaccess file containing the command Options -Indexes
• No .sql files stored in the public_html folder
• No WP backups stored in any public_html path. (Instead, use AWS S3 for archiving.)
• No inactive WP sites in cPanel. (Dev sites are ok.)
• All WP installs using a Login ReCAPTCHA plugin.
• All WP installs using Wordfence.
• All WP installs added to Main WP dashboard.
• All WP installs undergoing regularly scheduled maintenance. (All plugins, themes, or core files updated within last month.)
• No WP install with a generic username (e.g., admin).
• All WP installs using PHP5.6 or higher.
• All WP, database, and ssh passwords saved to LastPass.

Regular Server

Any site not meeting the criteria above must be hosted on our regular server: WebApps.unbridledsolutions.com

Create New cPanel Account for a Domain

• Navigate to the Webhost Manager of the appropriate LiquidWeb server.
• Go to Account Functions –> Create a New Account
• Fill out the form, using all default configs where possible.
• Use [email protected] for the email.
• Under the last option, Mail Routing Settings, select Remote Mail Exchanger.
• Add the cPanel username and password to LastPass.
• Click Create.
• You can now find the new cPanel account by going to Account Information –> List Accounts. Click the cPanel icon next to the appropriate domain to navigate to this domain’s cPanel to install WordPress, etc.
• Update the PHP Version following these instructions for any cPanel added to the Dedicated Server.

CREATING SUBDOMAINS

Adding a new subdomain is our preferred method of adding multiple WordPress sites to a single domain (as opposed to adding subfolders off the main domain).

To create a new subdomain:

• Navigate to the cPanel account for this domain in Liquid Web.
• In the domains section, click on Subdomains.
• Name the subdomain and use the default Domain Root suggestion (the subdomain name itself).
• Click create.
• In Cloudflare, add the subdomain to the DNS record of the main domain following these instructions.

Keep in mind that DNS can take up to 48 hours to propagate. In the meantime, if you need to access this domain, you can change the DNS routing for this domain at the level of your local machine, via the following command line:

sudo nano /etc/hosts

Making sure not to change any line that is already in this file, add a line to the bottom that links the IP of the server where your subdomain is hosted to the subdomain name. Like this:

67.227.192.100   name.mydomain.com

Follow the screen instructions to close and save this file.

You can remove this line (in the same way that you added it) to test whether or not DNS has propagated. Don’t forget to remove the line at some point.

SSL CERTIFICATES

Auto SSL via Let’s Encrypt is enabled for both LiquidWeb servers, giving all sites hosted here auto-generated free SSL certificates. When a new cPanel is added, or subdomain is created, the server automatically adds a new SSL certificate for this domain or subdomain. Initially, this will be a Self-Signed Certificate. Eventually, the server will validate the certificate via Let’s Encrypt. If you’d like to rush this process, or modify the SSL in any way you can do so by:

• Navigate to the Webhost Manager of the appropriate Liquid Web server for this (sub)domain.
• Click SSL/TLS –> Manage AutoSSL.
• Click the Manage Users tab.
• Scroll through the list to find the user associated with the cPanel account for this (sub)domain.
• Click the “Check [username]” button to request that the server try to initiate a validation for the SSL certificates on this cPanel. **Note: DNS needs to be pointed to this server in order for the SSL auto-validation to go through.