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Point Network Solutions DNS to Flywheel

Updated on April 3rd, 2023

Flywheel provides each site with an IP address to which domains can be pointed. This is useful if you own, for example, thisfinedomain.com, and would like it to resolve to a Flywheel site.

Note

This article is for customers who have purchased domains that are managed by Network Solutions. We have a general help tutorial as well as instructions for other domain providers here.

If you’re brand new to the world of domain names, some of the terminology may seem a little confusing. If you ever feel stuck, feel free to reference our Glossary of DNS terms.

Warning

For security best practices, we recommend not pointing a wildcard entry directly to a Flywheel IP address, but instead to point any subdomain independently. The use of wildcard records may open your domain up to additional subdomains being created without your permission.


Step 1: Add the domain to your Flywheel site

  1. From the site’s Overview tab, click the (+) icon in the Domains list to add the domain you’d like to point to Flywheel.
  2. Fill out the domain information:

    • Enter the URL in the Domain field
    • Check the box to set the domain to Primary (if this will be your site’s main URL)
    • By default, the www version of the domain will be added (uncheck the box to skip this step)
    • Select Yes for “Have you purchased this domain?”
    • Click Next

    Note

    In the background, our system will automatically update all appropriate URL references in the database to this new primary domain.
  3. Click the site’s IP address to copy it to your clipboard for use in Network Solutions’ DNS editor (instructions below). Clicking Back to site will take you back to the site’s Overview tab.

Step 2: Log in to Network Solutions

  1. In a separate tab, log in to your account at Network Solutions. Make sure to select Manage My Domain Names for the Log In To dropdown.
  2. You should see a list of all the domains you’ve purchased through Network Solutions. Under the domain you wish to edit, click the Change Where Domain Points button.
    Change Where Domain Points Highlight
  3. On the next page, choose the Advanced DNS option, then click Continue. Network Solutions Advanced DNS

Step 3: Configure the A records

You may see additional records in this section, especially if your domain was pointed to a different host previously. For now, we’re just going to be concerned with the A records, since they are the records responsible for pointing your domain to your website.

Be careful about modifying or deleting any other records – especially MX records, which are responsible for email. Also, it never hurts to take a screenshot before you start making changes.

  1. Click the Edit A Records button.
  2. In the Numeric IP fields, enter your Flywheel site’s IP address for each of the A records. In this example, the IP is 208.91.197.27.
    Note: The default setup on Network Solutions is to set up @ (the root version of your domain), www, and * (any other subdomain that somebody puts before the domain) as individual A records. If any of these records are missing, you can click Add More A Records to add them.
  3. Click the Continue button to review your changes.
  4. Click the Save Changes button to apply your changes.

Unless you have a subdomain setup, for example shop.thisfinedomain.com, you should only need one A record value. At the very least, make sure that you have one A record with @ set as the host which is pointing to your Flywheel IP address.


Step 4: Double-check your work

  1. After propagation, you can also verify your domain is successfully pointed to Flywheel by clicking the Check DNS button.
  2. Once your site is pointed to Flywheel, the status will switch to ✅ Pointed and the domain registrar will be displayed as well.

Note

DNS propagation times: DNS by nature can take 24-48 hours to fully propagate across the entire internet, though we generally see much quicker propagation. By default, Network Solutions sets the Time to Live setting for each record set to 2 hours. Depending on when that last check was, you should see your changes go live within that timeframe.

Note

Custom name servers: If you’ve made changes to your DNS records but nothing seems to be happening, your domain may be using custom names servers instead of Network Solutions’ defaults. This means that Network Solutions’ DNS settings will not have any effect. In this case, you will need to adjust your DNS settings at the name server’s admin panel instead. This situation is most likely when a proxy like Cloudflare or Sucuri is being used.


Need help?

If you have any questions our Happiness Engineers are here to help!

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