TentmakerHelp

Domain

On this page

A domain is a web address, like yourchurch.org. Your site always has an address on Tentmaker. If your church owns its own domain, you can also use an address in front of it, such as www.yourchurch.org (or site.yourchurch.org).

Only Owners can open this screen. It is under Advanced in the left menu, labelled Domain. The title on the screen is the same.

Domain

Before you start

  • You need to own a domain and be able to change its settings (its DNS) at the company where you bought it. That is usually your domain registrar. If you do not know who that is, ask whoever set up your church's email or old website.
  • You can use one custom domain for your church.
  • A name on a service where anyone can publish a page (such as github.io or workers.dev) cannot be used. Use a name on a domain your church owns.
  • The address must be a name in front of your domain: www.yourchurch.org or site.yourchurch.org, not the bare yourchurch.org. www is allowed and is the usual choice for a church's main address. The bare domain gets one extra record, explained below.
  • If your church's website is at www.yourchurch.org today, adding it here and connecting it moves that address to your Tentmaker site. Do it when you are ready for the old site to stop answering there. A name that someone else already holds on Tentmaker cannot be added (see "If the address is still not connected" below).

Adding your address

  1. Type the address in Address you want to use, such as www.yourchurch.org, and press Add this address.
  2. The screen shows a table of DNS records to add: a Type, a Name, a Value, and What it does. The three purposes are "Sends visitors to your Tentmaker site", "Proves the address is yours" and "Lets the secure padlock be issued".
  3. At your DNS company, add each record exactly as shown.
  4. Come back and press Check again. It can take a few minutes, or up to a day, for the records to be noticed.

The address shows one of three states:

  • Waiting for DNS: the records are not noticed yet.
  • Connected: it works.
  • Needs attention: the domain service could not finish. The screen explains why.

Tentmaker only checks when you press Check again. It does not keep checking on its own.

If the address is still not connected after a week, Tentmaker lets go of the name, so that a name nobody finished setting up is not held for ever. Your church can add it again at any time. A connected address is never let go.

The bare domain (yourchurch.org with nothing in front)

Your Tentmaker site lives at www.yourchurch.org, so that is the address you add. The screen says so if you try to add the bare domain itself. Visitors who type yourchurch.org without the www are sent on to www.yourchurch.org automatically, with the secure padlock, once you add one more record:

  1. Add www.yourchurch.org here and connect it, as above.
  2. When it says Connected, the screen shows One more record, for your bare domain: a table with one row of type A, the name yourchurch.org, and a number (an IP address) as the value.
  3. At the same DNS company, add that record. Some DNS companies write the name as @, or leave it blank, for the bare domain. If the bare domain already has an A record, change it to this one rather than adding a second. Leave your email records (MX and TXT) as they are.

It can take a few minutes to a day to be noticed, and the first visit after that may be a moment slower while the secure padlock is set up. If the screen does not show the extra record, ask whoever looks after Tentmaker. The www address works without it.

Making it your main address

When the state is Connected, press Make this my primary address. Visitors who use your own address now stay on it, and your Tentmaker address forwards to it. The address then shows the badge Primary address.

Removing it

Remove this address asks first. The site stays on its Tentmaker address.

If the screen says it is not connected

You may see "Custom domains are not connected on this server yet." That means nothing can be added until the domain service is set up on the server. Nothing has been changed. You may also see Practice mode, where the steps and statuses are only pretend, so you can see how it works.

Custom domains have not yet been tried against a real domain service. Treat the first one as a test, and ask whoever runs your Tentmaker to be ready to help. Your Tentmaker address always works in the meantime.