# Help in new server install - small forum group
**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/help-in-new-server-install-small-forum-group/52413
**Category:** Self-hosting
**Created:** [November 3, 2016, 2:05am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/help-in-new-server-install-small-forum-group/52413 "2016-11-03T02:05:46Z")
**Posts on this page:** 7
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@radadam](https://meta.discourse.org/u/radadam)
#### Post date: [November 3, 2016, 2:05am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/help-in-new-server-install-small-forum-group/52413/1 "2016-11-03T02:05:46Z")
Good evening,
I have a small group of friends who continue to use proboards, but I have looked for better options for mobile forum use. Discourse has been really impressive with the photo upload from photo library on iphone and drag/drop from windows.
I am looking for help in setting up the forums by purchasing the one time purchase and hosting on AWS. I have run servers before but with admin portals or lists of commands to run, so I’m competent, but need initial hand holding on the process.
Thanks for the assistance.
–
Adam
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### Author:  [@codinghorror](https://meta.discourse.org/u/codinghorror)
#### Post date: [November 3, 2016, 2:08am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/help-in-new-server-install-small-forum-group/52413/2 "2016-11-03T02:08:09Z")
We recommend the $99 one time fee install service as covered in our [official install](https://meta.discourse.org/t/142537?silent=true) guide: [discourse/docs/INSTALL-cloud.md at main · discourse/discourse · GitHub](https://github.com/discourse/discourse/blob/master/docs/INSTALL-cloud.md)
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### Author:  [@radadam](https://meta.discourse.org/u/radadam)
#### Post date: [November 3, 2016, 3:04am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/help-in-new-server-install-small-forum-group/52413/3 "2016-11-03T03:04:58Z")
Thanks I was a little intimidated by this at first and thought I saw reference to come here to ask for help on the pay site.
That said, after reading through a few times though I feel confident about doing it myself, and I’ve seen clear examples across the support community giving very fast responses, so thank you.
One last question I have though is a very n00b one. When setting up a domain for the forums, do I set up through a domain site like godaddy first with a url, then do everything through the hosted server at digitalocean, or do I have a non-custom url from digitalocean first, then route it to a customer url later?
I can restate that since I’m guessing there’s a high probability that doesn’t make sense what I’m asking.
Thanks
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### Author:  [@radadam](https://meta.discourse.org/u/radadam)
#### Post date: [November 3, 2016, 3:36am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/help-in-new-server-install-small-forum-group/52413/4 "2016-11-03T03:36:39Z")
Looks like I found a partial answer to my question: that I would have an IP address to access the forums, but still not sure how to set this up with a custom DNS.
> Start Discourse
> Once bootstrapping is complete, your Discourse should be accessible in your web browser via the domain name [discourse.example.com](http://discourse.example.com) you entered earlier, provided you configured DNS. If not, you can visit the server IP directly, e.g. [http://192.168.1.1](http://192.168.1.1).
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### Author:  [@radadam](https://meta.discourse.org/u/radadam)
#### Post date: [November 3, 2016, 3:46am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/help-in-new-server-install-small-forum-group/52413/5 "2016-11-03T03:46:15Z")
I’m good now sorry for finding out the answer after asking the question. Maybe someone else will find this useful later through searching.
> **[Domains and DNS | DigitalOcean Documentation](https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/networking/dns/)**
>
> Manage DNS for Droplets, DigitalOcean Load Balancers, and non-DigitalOcean resources all in the same place.
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### Author:  [@codinghorror](https://meta.discourse.org/u/codinghorror)
#### Post date: [November 3, 2016, 4:50am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/help-in-new-server-install-small-forum-group/52413/6 "2016-11-03T04:50:23Z")
You definitely want to buy a domain name first, it will be much easier down the road.
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### Author:  [@PabloC](https://meta.discourse.org/u/PabloC)
#### Post date: [November 11, 2016, 11:08pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/help-in-new-server-install-small-forum-group/52413/7 "2016-11-11T23:08:25Z")
> [@radadam](#):
>
> When setting up a domain for the forums, do I set up through a domain site like godaddy first with a url, then do everything through the hosted server at digitalocean, or do I have a non-custom url from digitalocean first, then route it to a customer url later?
1. buy a domain name and configure it with an external DNS (Ej: [Cloudns.net](http://Cloudns.net))
2. buy your VPS instance
3. point your DNS to the IP of your VPS instance.
If you have not some linux skills, I suggest to buy the setup services offered by the community.