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How to Transfer a Domain to AWS

Leron Amin 23 Comments

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After you’ve installed an application such as WordPress on Amazon’s AWS, the next step is to transfer your domain name to AWS so that it links to your website.

Taking the time to properly configure a domain name for your website is an easy way to prevent search engine indexing issues from occurring.

By default, your public IP address will be used as the domain for your website. However, using a public IP address as your primary domain is bad for your website’s SEO.

If you would rather use a custom domain name such as yourwebsite.com, then read on for instructions on how to transfer your domain to AWS.

Before getting started with this tutorial, you should have already installed an application such as WordPress on an Amazon AWS EC2 virtual machine instance.

There are 7 steps in this tutorial:

1. Copy Virtual Machine IP

transfer domain to aws
Login to your Amazon Web Services (AWS) account, and click on the Services link at the top of the page.
install wordpress on aws
Under the Compute column, click on the EC2 link.
install wordpress on aws
Next, click on the Instances link in the left-sidebar column.
install wordpress on aws
Use the bottom scrollbar to navigate right to copy your instance’s Public IP address.

2. Create a Hosted Zone

transfer domain to aws
In the URL bar of a new browser window, navigate to Route 53 by entering the following URL: https://console.aws.amazon.com/route53/home
transfer domain to aws
Click the Get started now button on the Route 53 homepage.
transfer domain to aws
Next, click the Create Hosted Zone button at the top of the page.
transfer domain to aws
On the Create Hosted Zone page, enter your domain name in the Domain Name field, then click the Create button to create a new hosted zone.

3. Add “A” Record

transfer domain to aws
At the top of the Hosted Zones page, click on the Create Record Set button.
transfer domain to aws
In the Type field, select A Record, and paste your public IP that you copied in one of the previous steps into the Value field, then click the Create button at the bottom of the page.

4. Add “CNAME” Record

transfer domain to aws
Next, click the Create Record Set button at the top of the page to create another Record.
transfer domain to aws
Enter www in the Name field, and select CNAME as the record type. In the Value field, enter your domain, then click on the Create button.

5. Edit Domain Name Servers

transfer domain to aws
On your Hosted Zones homepage, copy the nameservers in NS section of the page.
transfer domain to aws
Head over to your Domain Name registrar (Name Cheap is used in this example) and assign the nameservers that you just copied to your domain.

6. Test Settings

transfer domain to aws
After a few minutes, try accessing your site by entering your domain name into the URL bar. If everything is configured properly, you will see your WordPress homepage.

7. Include www. Prefix (Optional)

By default, your domain will show without the www. prefix.

If you would rather your domain show up as www.example.com instead of just example.com, then read on for configuration instructions.

NOTE: The instructions below are intended for users running Bitnami’s WordPress stack on AWS. If you’re using a different Apache configuration, remember to substitute the bitnami.conf file with your server’s htaccess equivalent.

In order to add the www. prefix to your domain, you will first need to configure an SSH client to connect to your EC2 instance. To learn how to SSH into your EC2 instance, check out How to SSH into EC2 Instance (AWS).

transfer domain to aws configure www
After you SSH into your EC2 instance by following the instructions in this tutorial, copy and paste the command below to open your server’s configuration file (right-click to paste).
sudo nano /opt/bitnami/apache2/conf/bitnami/bitnami.conf
transfer domain to aws configure www
Now that you’ve opened your server’s configuration file, copy and paste the three lines of code below in the exact same location as shown in the image. Save changes to the file (CTRL + O) then exit (CTRL + X) to the home screen.

  RewriteEngine On
  
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www\. [NC]
  
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI} [R=301,L]
transfer domain to aws configure www
Now that you’ve opened your server’s configuration file, copy and paste the three lines of code below in the exact same location as shown in the image. Save changes to the file (CTRL + O) then exit (CTRL + X) to the home screen.
sudo /opt/bitnami/ctlscript.sh restart apache

Did it work?

If you have general questions or comments about this tutorial, please feel free to leave them below.

If you benefited from this tutorial, and would like to support One Page Zen, please like our Facebook page and subscribe to our YouTube channel.

Thanks,

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Transfer a Domain Name to AWS

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Comments

  1. Leah-Kim Revel says

    This is great- but what if I don’t want the ‘www.’? How can I make it only for the domain lacking the ‘www.’?

    Reply

    • Leron Amin says

      Hi Leah-Kim,

      You would set the preferred version of your domain name under WordPress Settings > General.

      You should also configure a redirect in your Apache configuration. I go over what an example redirect would like in step 4 of this tutorial.

      Let me know if you have other questions,
      Joe

  3. dan says

    Hey Joe
    Thanks for all the tutorials really helped me with running my site.
    do you have a tutorial about implementing an SSL certificate with aws on wordpress?
    that would be so helpful

    Reply

    • Leron Amin says

      Hey Dan,

      Thanks for the feedback!

      I don’t have an SSL tutorial for AWS at the moment – but I have received a lot of requests. Stay tuned!

      Talk to you soon,
      Joe

  4. Jyoti says

    Hi Leron,

    Great tutorial!
    I am having trouble with finding appropriate config file to tweak “www” part. I am not using Bitnami, instead I have Apache+mysql+php installed on my AWS EC2 instance and for now I am just using index.html located in /var/www/html/. Do you have any idea ?

    Thanks for help!

    Reply

    • Leron Amin says

      Hi Jyoti,

      Your Apache configuration files are located in the following location:
      /etc/apache2/sites-available/

      Navigate to this location, and add the directives to your apache2.conf file.

      Let me know if you have questions,
      Joe

  5. David C says

    Thanks for the tutorial.
    How do I manage my Google domain to point to EC2 website without using AWS Route 53?

    Reply

    • Leron Amin says

      Hi David,

      You can visit your domain registrar and create an A record with the IP address of your VM instance.

      Try following the instructions in this guide here, minus the last step.

      Let me know if you have questions,
      Joe

  7. Sapam.S says

    can you add a bit more on how to add an elastic ip with our hosting? My site went down after i attatched an elastic ip. Some help

    Reply

  9. Mike says

    Can you please put up an article on How to log into phpmyadmin page especially for Bitnami stack? You have to “tunnel in” into it and is very complicated. Please consider!

    Reply

    • Leron Amin says

      Hey Mike,

      Thanks for reaching out!

      I’ve already published an article on how to configure SSH tunnels, and you can view it here. Be sure to check out the comments at the bottom of that tutorial as well, as some experienced developers have gone over problems that they faced and solutions on how to resolve them.

      Let me know if you have any questions,
      Joe

  10. patrick perez says

    I still have to buy the domain name before proceeding right? And is there a way to do it through Amazon instead of other services?

    Reply

  11. Ay says

    Hello my friend
    the Route53 service not included in the free tier in Amazon
    Are there any way to use AWS EC2 with Cloudflare without using Route53
    or any way to add the domain to AWS EC2 without using Route53

    Reply

    • Leron Amin says

      Hi Ay,

      Yes you can, just follow this tutorial here.
      To do this in CloudFlare would be more complicated, as CloudFlare requires that you use their nameservers. It’s something you’d have to look into.

      Good luck and let me know if you have any questions,
      Joe

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