After you create or import your website into Acquia Cloud, you can access each of your site’s environments using its default domain name. An environment’s default domain name is based on its sitename (for example, the domain name for a production environment could be
examplesite.devcloud.acquia-sites.com). You should then configure a DNS domain name for the production environment, such as
www.example.com, and configure DNS records to use your public IP addresses, rather than using the
acquia-sites.com default domain name.
To view the domain information for your site, go to the Domains page at Cloud > Domains.
Note that each environment, when it is created, is provisioned with a single custom Acquia Cloud subdomain. Once created, Acquia Cloud subdomains cannot be changed, and additional custom Acquia Cloud subdomains cannot be added to an environment.
After you add your website domain name(s) to the Prod environment, the Acquia Cloud load balancers can send incoming requests to your site for that domain name. Your DNS provider has to point your domain names to the IP address of the environment (Dev, Stage, or Prod) so that requests for that domain name are directed to Acquia Cloud's load balancers. You can also add domain names to your Dev and Stage environments.
Viewing your IP address
The IP address of each of your environments is on the Domains page.
Acquia Cloud Professional accounts have a single IP address for all three environments. Acquia Cloud Enterprise accounts can have multiple addresses.
Adding a domain name
To add a domain to one of your site's environments:
- In the environment into which you want to add a domain, click Add domain. The Add domain dialog opens.
- In the Domain name field, enter the domain name without the protocol header. For example, use
- Click Add domain.
If you want to make your website available to multiple related domain names (such as
www.example.com), individually add each domain name. Otherwise, you can use the wildcard character in a single domain entry to allow for subdomains.
Checking domain status
You can check whether your domain name is properly resolving to your Acquia Cloud website. On the Cloud > Domains page, click Domain Status. Acquia performs a DNS lookup for your domain name and displays one of the following status messages:
- Domain resolves to Acquia. This means that your DNS settings and Acquia Cloud are properly configured.
- Domain doesn't resolve directly to Acquia. This means that your DNS provider is pointing your domain name to an IP address different from your Acquia website. The Domain Status report displays the IP address and any alias found for the domain name. This status is normal if you use a CDN with your website. Otherwise, your domain name and DNS settings may be misconfigured.
- Domain doesn't resolve at all. This means that you have not set up the domain name with any DNS provider.
If your domain name doesn't resolve to your Acquia website, or if it doesn't resolve at all, make sure you have followed the instructions in Pointing DNS records to your public IP addresses.
Removing a domain name
To remove a domain from a site's environment:
- Go to the Cloud > Domains page.
- Click Remove for the domain that you want to delete.
- To confirm your choice, click Remove domain.
acquia-sites.com default domain name cannot be removed. It is necessary in order to enable Acquia support and operations to reach your website even if DNS is not working.
Managing your site's Varnish cache
Each domain name associated with your account has its own Varnish cache to speed page access.
By default, not all versions of Drupal support Varnish; however, Drupal 7 and the Acquia Drupal 6 and Pressflow distribution do. If your site supports Varnish caching, clearing these caches ensures that anonymous website visitors see the most up-to-date version of your website after you make any changes.
To clear the Varnish cache for a domain name, click Clear Varnish.
For more information, see Using Varnish.
Search indexing is blocked for acquia-sites.com domains
Since sites that use the default domain name ending in
acquia-sites.com aren't intended to be publicly available, Acquia Cloud uses a
robots.txt file to disallow indexing of those domains by search engine robots. Robots that reach your site using your DNS domain name, such as
www.example.com, will operate normally and will be able to index your site for searches.