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I'm a bit confused about how I am supposed to get my domain from my app. After doing research, I decided to host the app using Amazon Elastic Beanstalk. I realized that I cannot register my domain name for the app using Amazon.

The most common domain registration site I have heard of is godaddy which does not support Django. I heard that WebFaction supports Django, so I was planning on going with WebFaction.

But this is where I got confused.

Note: I am well aware that I can make the domain name of the app to point to AWS servers (as ex[;ained here: http://docs.aws.amazon.com/gettingstarted/latest/swh/getting-started-configure-route53.html).

When I look at the pricing for WebFaction, it talks about server hardware and seems to talk about the same stuff AWS has to offer. For example, over here: webfaction.com/features it says the OS is Centos but AWS offers Ubuntu (which is what I want to use). WebFaction offers 512MB of memory while AWS S3 offers 5GB. So

1) if I get my domain name on WebFaction, do both memories combine and I have 5GB + 512MB?

2) Where would I be putting up my source code? on WebFaction or on AWS?

3) Since WebFaction offers only 512MB of memory but my AWS server will offer 5GB, will my domain go down once I go over 512MB since WebFaction only supports that much?

SilentDev
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2 Answers2

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You're confused about different services you need. DNS and hosting are totally independent, but many providers offer both as a package.

You could register a domain with some other provider and then use Amazon's Route 53 to host the DNS for the domain you registered with some external provider to point it to your EC2 instance.

  1. No, the memory does not combine. You can't host it in two places simultaneously (at least not like that).

  2. If AWS is what you've decided on, just stick with that.

  3. Again, you can't host it in multiple places and just combine them like that.

Ben
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  • so would I be able to register just a domain (www.example.com) and nothing else with godaddy (even though it does not support django) and point it to the aws server / map it against my DNS records as a CNAME? – SilentDev Jul 22 '14 at 03:52
  • Yup! I use one company as a DNS registrar (e.g. godaddy), another company to host the DNS (e.g. Route 53), and a third company to host applications (e.g. EC2). – Ben Aug 07 '14 at 17:59
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You are almost there all that you need to do is to take the elasticbeanstalk's URL and map it against your DNS records as a CNAME i.e. myapplication.elasticbeanstalk.com with WWW.

Assuming your domain name is example.dom after you map it in DNS zone file, when somebody comes www.example.com of would point to myapplication.elasticbeanstalk.com

You can do the same with Route53 as well but the first step to it would be set the name servers for Route53 in your domain registrar like GoDaddy (webfraction in your case)

You do not need any other additional services like hosting from your domain registrar.

Using Custom Domains with AWS Elastic Beanstalk

Naveen Vijay
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  • would I be able to register just a domain (www.example.com) and nothing else with godaddy (even though it does not support django) and point it to the aws server / map it against my DNS records as a CNAME? – SilentDev Jul 22 '14 at 04:38
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    Absolutely. You can just register a domain, ensure you uncheck all the add-ons - generally they would be checked and included while you try to buy the domain; like mail hosting, website designer, hosting etc. – Naveen Vijay Jul 22 '14 at 07:26