Using Route 53 to enable SSL on your bare domain

If you are using self-service SSL through the Acquia Cloud UI, with the SSL certificate on an Elastic Load Balancer (ELB), a bare domain will not work with this certificate. With an ELB, the only DNS available is a CNAME, which means that bare domain names are not supported because bare domains only support an IP in the A-record, and not a CNAME.

Domain name providers that support ALIAS/ANAME records can be used to work around this issue. One method that's available to Acquia Cloud Enterprise and and Acquia Cloud Site Factory websites, allowing them to use bare domains, is to use Acquia Cloud Edge.

Another way around this is to use Amazon's Route 53 to host your DNS, which allows you to point your bare domain directly to the ELB. Amazon's documentation describes the steps necessary to route a bare domain name to an ELB using Route 53.

Customers who elect to host their DNS through Amazon's Route 53 service will be responsible for setting up and configuring their DNS records and troubleshooting any issues that may arise.

Here's an example of how to configure Route 53 services:

• Go to the Route 53 admin interface.

  If your domain DNS isn't currently hosted through Route 53, click the Add Hosted zone button to add the domain to Route 53.

• In Route 53, select your newly added domain, and click Go to Record Sets.
   
• Click Create Record Set, and then enter the following values:
  • Name: Leave the default for the bare domain.
  • Type: Click A - IPv4 address.
  • Alias: Click Yes to use a hostname rather than an IP address.
  • Alias target: Enter the hostname of the ELB as it is listed in your [acquia-product:ais] UI.

After you've saved the record set, you'll need to go to your domain provider and update your name servers to point to the Amazon name servers as reported on your Route 53 dashboard. These name servers are listed under Delegation Set. After the DNS for the domain name has propagated (24-48 hours), your bare domain name will point to the ELB of your load balancer.

Other possible providers

Acquia Support has also been informed that the following DNS providers may support the following record types:

• DNSimple: ALIAS
• DNS Made Easy: ANAME
• easyDNS: ANAME