Custom domain for GitHub project pages

Question

I have a gh-pages branch in one of my http   github com repos  The GitHub project pages works fine if I go to http   myuser github com myrepo  I want to setup a custom domain  myexample com  that will serve up this project pages   I want both myexample com and www myexample com to serve up these project pages   GitHub pages help says to make an A record and a CNAME record in your DNS   The A record makes sense  but I do not know what CNAME record to make in my DNS   The gh-pages docs say to make a CNAME record for  charlie github com  which is a user page repository   I do not have a user page repository - I only have a project repository and a gh-pages branch that I want to use for myexample com and www myexample com   Do I need to make a user page repository just so I can use my project page for www myexample com and myexample com   I would just try it  but I want to make sure this will work as I already have www myexample com live and don t want to make a mistake   I emailed GitHub support and their response was     You can t have both point to the same gh-pages as far as I know      I find it hard to believe they would only support A records for project pages   Has anyone successfully done this before

User · Answer

As of Aug 29  2013  Github s documentation claim that      Warning  Project pages subpaths like http   username github io projectname will not be redirected to a project s custom domain

User · Answer

Overview  The documentation is a little confusing when it comes to project pages  as opposed to user pages  It feels like you should have to do more  but actually the process is very easy   It involves    Setting up 2 static A records for the naked  no www  domain   Creating one CNAME record for www which will point to a GitHub URL  This will handle www redirection for you   Creating a file called CNAME  capitalised  in your project root on the gh-pages branch  This will tell Github what URL to respond to  Wait for everything to propagate    What you will get  Your content will be served from a URL of the form http   nicholasjohnson com   Visiting http   www nicholasjohnson com will return a 301 redirect to the naked domain    The path will be respected by the redirect  so traffic to http   www nicholasjohnson com angular will be redirected to http   nicholasjohnson com angular    You can have one project page per repository  so if your repos are open you can have as many as you like   Here s the process   1  Create A records  For the A records  point   to the following ip addresses      185 199 108 153    185 199 109 153    185 199 110 153    185 199 111 153   These are the static Github IP addresses from which your content will be served   2  Create a CNAME Record  For the CNAME record  point www to yourusername github io  Note the trailing full stop  Note also  this is the username  not the project name  You don t need to specify the project name yet  Github will use the CNAME file to determine which project to serve content from   e g   www  forwardadvance github io    The purpose of the CNAME is to redirect all www subdomain traffic to a GitHub page which will 301 redirect to the naked domain   Here s a screenshot of the configuration I use for my own site http   nicholasjohnson com     3  Create a CNAME file  Add a file called CNAME to your project root in the gh-pages branch  This should contain the domain you want to serve  Make sure you commit and push   e g   nicholasjohnson com   This file tells GitHub to use this repo to handle traffic to this domain    4  Wait  Now wait 5 minutes  your project page should now be live

User · Answer

I d like to share my steps which is a bit different to what offered by rynop and superluminary     for A Record is exactly the same but   instead of creating CNAME for www I would prefer to redirect it to my blank domain  non-www    This configuration is referring to guidance of preferred domain  The domain setting of www to non www or vise versa can be different on each of the domain providers  Since my domain is under GoDaddy  so under the  Domain Setting I set it using the Subdomain Forwarding  301      As the result of pointing the domain to Github repository  it will then give all the URLs for both of master and gh-pages branch similar like the ones I listed below goes to the preferred domain   master   By creating CNAME file on master branch  check it on my user repository       http   hyipworld github io    http   www hyip world    http   hyip world    gh-pages    By creating  the same CNAME file on gh-pages branch  check it on my project  repository       http   hyipworld github io maps    http   www hyip world maps    http   hyip world maps      As addition to the CNAME file above  you may need to completely bypass Jekyll processing on GitHub Pages by creating a file named  nojekyll in the root of your pages repo

User · Answer

1 23 19 UPDATE  Things have changed quite a bit  for the better  since my last answer   This updated answer will show you how to configure   Root apex  example com  Sub-domain  www example com  HTTPS  optional but strongly encouraged   In the end  all requests to example com will be re-directed to https   www example com  or http    if you choose NOT to use HTTPS    I always use www as my final landing   Why 1 2   is for another discussion  This answer is long but it is not complicated   I was verbose for clarity as the GitHub docs on this topic are not clear or linear  Step 1  Enable GitHub pages in GitHub settings  From your repo  click on the  tab Scroll down to the GitHub Pages section   You have two options   Choosing master branch will treat  README md as your web index html   Choosing master branch  docs folder will treat  docs README md as your web index html  Choose a theme  Wait a minute while GitHub publishes your site   Verify it works by clicking on the link next to Your site is ready to be published at  Step 2  Specify custom domain in GitHub settings Enter your custom domain name here and hit save   This is a subtle  but important step   If the custom domain you added to your GitHub Pages site is example com  then www example com will redirect to example com If the custom domain you added to your GitHub Pages site is www example com  then example com will redirect to www example com   As mentioned before  I recommend always landing at www so I entered www example com as pictured above  Step 3  Create DNS entries In your DNS provider s web console  create four A records and one CNAME   A Records for    aka root apex    Some DNS providers will have you specify    others  like AWS Route 53  you will leave the sub-domain blank to indicate     In either case  these are the A records to create  185 199 108 153 185 199 109 153 185 199 110 153 185 199 111 153  Check the Github docs to confirm these are the most up-to-date IPs   Create a CNAME record to point www example com to YOUR-GITHUB-USERNAME github io   This is the most confusing part  Note the YOUR-GITHUB-USERNAME NOT the GitHub repo name   The value of YOUR-GITHUB-USERNAME is determined by this chart  For a User pages site  most likely what you are   CNAME entry will be username github io  ex   For a Organization  pages site  CNAME entry will be orgname github io  ex   Step 5  Confirm DNS entries  Confirm your A records by running dig  noall  answer example com   It should return the four 185 x x x IP addresses you entered   Confirm your CNAME record by running dig www example com  nostats  nocomments  nocmd   It should return a CNAME   YOUR-GITHUB-USERNAME github io   It may take an hour or so for these DNS entries to resolve propagate   Once they do  open up your browser to http   example com and it should re-direct to http   www example com Step 6  SSL  HTTPS  Configuration  Optional  but highly recommended After you have the custom domain working  go back to the repo settings   If you already have the settings page open  hard refresh the page  If there is a message under the Enforce HTTPS checkbox  stating that it is still processing you will need to wait   You may also need to hit the save button in the Custom domain section to kick off the Enforce HTTPS processing  Once processing is completed  it should look like this   Just click on the Enforce HTTPS checkbox  and point your browser to https   example com   It should re-direct and open https   www example com THATS IT  GitHub will automatically keep your HTTPS cert up-to-date AND should handle the apex to www redirect over HTTPS  Hope this helps

User · Answer

The selected answer is the good one  but is long  so you might not read the key point  I got an error with the SSL when accesign www example com but it worked fine if I go to example com If it happens the same to you  probably your error is that in the DNS configuration you have set  CNAME www example com -- gt  example com   WRONG   But  what you have to do is  CNAME www example com -- gt  username github io   GOOD   or CNAME www example com -- gt  organization github io   GOOD   That was my error

User · Answer

Short answer  These detailed explanations are great  but the OP s  and my  confusion could be resolved with one sentence   Direct DNS to your GitHub username or organization  ignoring the specific project  and add the appropriate CNAME files in your project repositories  GitHub will send the right DNS to the right project based on files in the respository

User · Answer

If you are wondering how to get your domain to appear as www mydomain com instead of redirecting the www request to   mydomain com  try this    CNAME file on gh-pages branch will have one line   www mydomain com  instead of mydomain com   No matter your preference on redirection  in other words  no matter what is in your CNAME file on the gs-pages branch   with your DNS provider  you should set it up like this   A           192 30 252 154 A           192 30 252 153 CNAME  www  username github io

User · Answer

I just discovered  after a bit of frustration  that if you re using PairNIC  all you have to do is enable the  Web Forwarding  setting under  Custom DNS  and supply the username github io project address and it will automatically set up both the apex and subdomain records for you  It appears to do exactly what s suggested in the accepted answer  However  it won t let you do the exact same thing by manually adding records  Very strange  Anyway  it took me a while to figure that out  so I thought I d share to save everyone else the trouble

User · Answer

Things are lot easier nowadays     Update your Apex domain     record to point      192 30 252 154       192 30 252 153    Edit your Custome domain field in your github repo settings          www and other subdomains can be updated as CNAME to apex domain

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