Using Custom Domain

Product Support

AI-generated summary

Eugene49, a developer, seeks to use Discourse as a private code repository for his small team, hosted by Discourse (not self-hosted) due to time and skill constraints. He operates from a restricted facility where sites like Evernote are blocked, and his trial Discourse subdomain (xyz.discourse.group) is also inaccessible. He wishes to replace it with a custom domain (e.g., forum.myDomain.com) to bypass restrictions. After initial confusion about domain setup, he learns from merefield and Moin that he must configure a CNAME record pointing to mpx.hosted-by-discourse.com. He initially misconfigured DNS via Squarespace, but pfaffman clarifies that his DNS is managed by Wix — despite purchasing the domain via Google — and provides diagnostic links. After correcting the DNS at Wix, Eugene49 confirms success in the Discourse admin panel. HAWK reminds users that for hosted plan support, direct email to team@discourse.org is available. The thread highlights common pitfalls in custom domain setup for hosted Discourse, especially around DNS delegation and provider confusion.

1

I am a programmer/developer.
I plan to use discourse solely for my small development team.
I want to use discourse as “repository for re-usable code”.

  • Is this a usual use case?

Regarding the subject of this post:
I am working on high restriction facility. That said, I do not have access to my code repository at evernote, as the website is block.

I created a trial account on discourse.
I see that my url xyz.discourse.group is still block from the facility. Hoping if I migrate to my own domain, my discourse forum won’t be block.

I have my own website using my own domain.
Can I use this on trial? How do you set this up?

2

Welcome to Meta! :hugs:

Use the standard install.

This Topic may be of interest too:

3

But I do no want to install it on my server… I want to host it on Discourse, and maintained by Discourse Staff - this is why you pay the monthly fees right?

– I do not have the time and skills to maintain discourse and the server.

4

Great! That’s possible too, but you will need to have the appropriate internet access.

5

Yes. I am a contractor on the said Restricted Facility.
I have access to internet and forums (eg discourse community).. But not storage sites like dropbox, google drive, or evernote.

Hopping I could change this: xyz.discourse.group to something else (eg. forum.myDomain.com)
How do I do this?

6
7

Thank you for fast response.

This is what I need.

I need to remember though where why supplied my domain.

Edit:
I purchased and manage my domain from Google Suite

8

Quick help please.

When changing domain name on Discourse admin setting:
New Domain: forum.mpx-transform.com
it returned error:

forum.mpx-transform.com does not resolve to a CNAME.
It needs to be a CNAME to mpx.hosted-by-discourse.com

Below is the configuration I made on SquareSpace (my domain provider)

Host = forum
Type = CNAME
Data = mpx.hosted-by-discourse.com

Where did I go wrong?

Thank you.

9

The whois record suggests that you need to make changes at wix.

See Network Tools: DNS,IP,Email

And that no record exists

See Network Tools: DNS,IP,Email

10

Thank you.
I will try that..
Funny. I bought the domain from google, google got it from squarespace, and wix (my website provider) manage the dns record.

Hope this work this time.

11

It’s very confusing even without Google selling their domain business to squarespace.

But you told wix (and announced to the world) that you want them in charge of your DNS, so the Google to squarespace thing didn’t change anything.

12

Admin setting returned success now.
Now I wait.

Probably I told that to wix.
This is one time setup and forget kind of things for me.

Thanks for the help.

13

For support on our hosted plans you can email team@doscourse.org and we’ll help you directly.