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Custom Domain⚓︎

Your forum is initially named <you>.freeflarum.com or <you>.flarum.cloud. But it is easy (and free) to use your own domain name to make it look more professional.

Plus, if you ever want to migrate your forum elsewhere, you can keep the same name (and data).

Cloudflare Protection

If you are using a custom domain for your forum, you lose the benefits of Cloudflare's protection that FreeFlarum enables for all forums under one of FreeFlarum's default domains. In that case, it is your responsibility to ensure that your domain remains protected from internet threats.

To start using your own domain name, follow these steps:

  1. Get a domain name, with a registrar such as Namecheap or Porkbun;
  2. Add a CNAME DNS record at the registrar's control panel that points to cname.freeflarum.com;
  3. Enter your custom domain in the FreeFlarum Settings page.

Configuring DNS can be tricky, because every registrar has a different method and rules to do so. We will try to tell you the basics to get going.

General DNS instructions

You should create a CNAME record from your own domain name to FreeFlarum, which looks like this:

subdomain.yourdomain.tld. 300 IN CNAME cname.freeflarum.com

TTL

Your provider might ask for a TTL, you should set this as low as possible, e. g.: 2 minutes. This allows you to change servers quickly, if necessary.

Using a root/naked domain

A domain without a subdomain (eg your.tld instead of www.your.tld) is called a "root" domain. Root CNAMEs are not officially supported by the DNS, and are not compatible with FreeFlarum either.

There's one trick to "fake" the root functionality of your domain, simply by using a "www" subdomain. Or, you can make a redirect from your root domain to your subdomain linked to FreeFlarum, e. g.: your forum is at your.forum.tld, and forum.tld redirects users to your.forum.tld. Redirection rules can be set up at your domain registar, if they support them.

Note

If you keep getting an error from FreeFlarum saying that a CNAME cannot be found, first double check whether a CNAME can be found using a third party tool.

If no CNAME record can be added, your provider probably does support it. You may switch to another DNS provider. These DNS services are known to work with FreeFlarum: Namecheap, Porkbun, Gandi, HiChina, Dynadot, Alidns, HostFly.by, NameBright.

Proxy

Make sure to disable the Cloudflare proxy in Cloudflare DNS settings, so that the icon is grey (not orange).

Reset the domain

If you used a custom domain but don't want it anymore, you can enter your old xxx.freeflarum.com (or xxx.flarum.cloud) hostname in the FreeFlarum settings.