IP does not redirect to domain, domain shows white page

[Jacob_Peebles]

Hi All,

I’ve installed the bitnami discourse marketplace app on Google Cloud Platform.

Everything seems to have worked as planned and I am now at the step where I am trying to assign my domain to the site.

In summary here is what I have done, I have my IP, it’s all set up here: http://35.231.40.89/

Now, what I would expect is it to forward to my domain which I’ve configured using the Google Cloud DNS service…

However that’s not happening.

What’s odder, is my domain does resolve to the discourse site, but just to a white page with the bitnami tab on the bottom, very odd.

Is there any trick to this?

Thanks in advance for the help and if I missed any details please just let me know!

Thanks,

Jake

[Remah (Just another happy Discourse user)]

Hi Jake

The official install method is to use the instructions at https://github.com/discourse/discourse/blob/master/docs/INSTALL-cloud.md

A Bitnami install should be supported by whoever created it.

[Remah (Just another happy Discourse user)]

Turning off CSP may help:

Port forwarding?

Do you see any errors in the browser console? It could be related to CSP.

[Jacob_Peebles]

Remah!

First thanks for the response and sorry for the delay in getting back to you. Yes, I see your point RE: the bitnami install and this being the discourse site.

But I think this question is actually not related to that aspect of things, so let me rephrase and ask a few more things:

• Is it possible to have discourse point the main domain, and not a subdomain? Can I have discourse run on mycommunity.com rather than forum.mycommunity.com?

Here is my site, you an see the domain here, thepros.community…as you can see it’s simply a white page.

What’s odd is my DNS configuration is very vanilla, when I’ve done this type of work before usually the IP just forwards to the domain without issue…

Thanks!

Jake

[Jacob_Peebles]

Not sure what CSP is, but I see no browser errors, nothing of that nature.

[Remah (Just another happy Discourse user)]

Yes, Discourse can run on a domain:

Configure your hosted domain name at the root (example.com)

Most hosted discourse instances are on a subdomain: forum.example.com talk.example.com www.example.com This is our general recommendation in almost all cases, and it works great. However, if you wish to use a root domain or apex domain for your hosted discourse, like so example.com this turns out to be surprisingly difficult in a hosting scenario, due to the vagaries of how DNS works. It is possible, however, you must use a DNS provider that specifically supports it! Here is a…

CSP is described below. It is possibly related to your problem. If so then this topic tells you how to disable it so you can add your sources:

Mitigate XSS Attacks with Content Security Policy

What is Content Security Policy? Content Security Policy (CSP) is an added layer of security that helps to detect and mitigate certain types of attacks, including Cross Site Scripting (XSS) and data injection attacks. These attacks are used for everything from data theft to site defacement to distribution of malware. – Content Security Policy (CSP) - HTTP | MDN XSS is still one of the most common web vulnerability – if someone else can run scripts on your site, it is not your site anymore…

[Jacob_Peebles]

Thanks Remah, interesting will begin readying and check back in with an update!

• Jake

[Remah (Just another happy Discourse user)]

Sorry, I should have explained.

You are self-hosting so you don’t need the Discourse-hosted instructions. I just included it to show there can be problems using apex domains and you should understand this significant con.

It’s not actually directly relevant to your current issue. But if you are interested in understanding this issue then this blog is good to read
https://www.isc.org/blogs/cname-at-the-apex-of-a-zone/