○ Using a custom domain name with a secure HTTPS connection (TLS/SSL)
If you like, you can set up your own URL instead of yourlearningenvironment.anewspring.com.
Because the custom URL won't simply work with a secure HTTPS connection, we always install a TLS/SSL certificate for you.
To cover the costs, we will charge a yearly amount for a custom domain with a secure HTTPS connection. This includes renewing a certificate when the previous one expires. If you want more information about these costs, contact the Support team.
Are you paying a platform fee? Then one certificate is included
1) Create a sub domain in your domain settings
This should always be a subdomain of an existing domain. If your own website is www.website.com, you could, for example, use elearning.website.com instead of yourlearningenvironment.anewspring.com.
2) Change the DNS settings of your domain.
The subdomain that you would like to use (elearning.website.com) should become a CNAME of {yourlearningenvironment}.anewspring.com. Replace {yourlearningenvironment} with the right subdomain (in some cases it will be anewspring.nl). If you don't know how to set this up, the company that hosts your domain could help you with that.
If you use multiple subenvironments, it is very important to always use the standard aNewSpring URL as a CNAME in this way:
aNewSpring URL | custom URL | CNAME | |
Standard environment | yourlearningenvironment.anewspring.com | elearning.website.com | {yourlearningenvironment}.anewspring.com |
Subenvironment 1 | customer1-yourlearningenvironment.anewspring.com | customer1.website.com | {yourlearningenvironment}.anewspring.com |
Subenvironment 2 | customer2-yourlearningenvironment.anewspring.com | customer2.website.com | {yourlearningenvironment}.anewspring.com |
If your custom URL has a different extension (.com, .nl, .co.za, etc.) than your aNewSpring URL, please contact us first. You might need to refer the CNAME to a different URL.
3) Notify us about your subdomain
Send us an email at support@anewspring.com and let us know which URL you would like to use and for which subenvironment we should set this up. Due to our setup, you will be directed to the right subenvironment. This could also occur if you have set multiple subenvironments as the same CNAME.
The TLS/SSL certificate (HTTPS)
The certificate is necessary to encrypt sensitive information, so it can't be intercepted. You can recognise websites that use a TLS/SSL certificate by the presence of HTTPS in the link.
Because your custom URL refers to our server, a secure connection will only work if there is a certificate installed on our server.
Our aNewSpring app only works with a secure connection, so it will not be possible to log in with your own domain name if it doesn't use HTTPS.
We will always install a so called Wildcard certificate for you on for example *.website.com. This means that all sub domains will be covered once you want to have more sub environments with custom URL's with that domain.
The costs we charge are per certificate.
We can also add multiple domains when creating the certificate. For example *.website.com and *.learning.com. So if you know in advance that you want to create multiple subdomains that refer to different domains, we can add them both to the same certificate.
4) Validate your domain by adding another CNAME record in the DNS settings
To be able to install the certificate, your domain needs to be validated with Amazon Certificates.
Therefore you have to add a new CNAME record to the DNS settings of your domain.
We will give you the unique record that is associated with the certificate. It will look something like this:
Name | Type | Value |
_47dca2a694643cdbb05.website.com. | CNAME | _b56d0658d2ae1.jfsdfajdk.acm-validations.aws. |
Tips
If you have trouble adding or changing the CNAME record, these tips might help!
Remove underscore
It can help to remove the underscore (_) at the start of the Name. Some systems do not support this. The underscore at the start of the Value is however required and should not be removed.
Adding or removing the dot from the values
It depends on the domain provider whether you have to add a dot at the end of the name (com. and aws. from the example) or not. When you don't add the dot, some systems will otherwise remove the domain and it cannot be validated.
Remove the domain name in CNAME name
You can try removing the last part of the name like this:
_47dca2a694643cdbb05.website.com. _47dca2a694643cdbb05
Do not remove the domain in the CNAME Value field.
Cloudflare DNS proxy
If you use Cloudflare for your DNS settings, make sure that the CNAME for the certificate validation is not set to Proxied as this will hide the actual CNAME record that Amazon Certificates needs to verify. Instead, this record needs to be set to DNS Only.
After this is validated, we can finish setting up the certificate and you will be able to visit your learning environment using HTTPS with your custom URL.
It is important that the CNAME record remains in the DNS settings after validation. Otherwise, the certificate cannot be immediately renewed after one year.