How to Check the Settings of Your Custom Domains and SSL Certificates?

Time to read: 5 min.

The article covers the following topics:

• Which custom domains can be implemented on the Affise side?
• How to verify DNS configuration?
• How to check your SSL certificate?

After getting access to your platform, Affise provides you with a set of default domain names. To find them visit the 'Settings' section -> 'Tracking Domains' tab in your Affise Admin Panel. Find a detailed guide on how to set up your custom domains here. 

Which custom domains can be implemented on the Affise side?

If you have decided to customize your default domains and set a list of your ones, in Affise, you can easily implement custom domains for Admin Panel, Affiliate Panel, and Tracking URL.

 All the accounts have an option to use a new default Admin panel URL with a secure HTTPS connection: https://offers-YourAccountName.affise.com. Kindly notice, both http:// and https:// versions of Admin panel URLs are working now. 

How to verify DNS configuration? 

1. Your custom domain should include no less than three levels. Ex. tracking.rocketcompany.com

2. Check if your custom domain is an alias to the Affise default domain. What is an alias? An alias domain is like having multiple doors to one location: the one that points to the same page as your default domain, without changing the URL. For instance, if a user goes to admin.rocketcompany.com, he'll see the content from offer.rocketcompany.affise.com, but continue to see the URL admin.rocketcompany.com in the browser's location bar.

We highly recommend using the following sample of the Admin domain as a default one: offers-rocketcompany.affise.com. We will support the old sample offers.rocketcompany.affise.com till the end of the 2020 year!!!

Find out more about how to set the CNAME record for your custom domain here.

3. Before sending the domain to the Affise Support Team, you'll need to check if the CNAME record is set up in the right way on your side. This can be easily done in the following way:

For macOS:

If the OS of your computer is iOS, you need to navigate to Launchpad -> Other -> Terminal and use the ‘host’ command. Type the following command: 'host your domain', click on the Enter button. The response should contain the Affise default domain as an alias.

Ex.:

host admin.rocketcompany.com

admin.rocketcompany.com is an alias for offers.rocketcompany.affise.com.

offers.rocketcompany.affise.com is an alias for rocketcompany.affise.com.

rocketcompany.affise.com has address (here your IP-address)

For Windows:

For windows users, the command prompt (command line) is used.

Type the following command: 'nslookup your custom domain', click on the Enter button. The response should contain the Affise default domain as an alias.

Ex.:

C:\Users\HP>nslookup admin.rocketcompany.com
╤хЁтхЁ: router
Address: (IP address)

╚ь : rocketcompany.affise.com
Address: (IP address)
Aliases: admin.rocketcompany.com
offers.rocketcompany.affise.com

4. Once all the steps above are done, you may proceed with the domain's implementation on the Affise side. Do not forget to add your custom tracking domain into the Settings of your Admin Panel. 

5. Send the domain to Affise Support Team via your internal live-chat or [e-mail] to implement the domain on the Affise side.

How to check your SSL certificate?

1. Purchase SSL-certificate (.crt), Private Key (.key), bundle (.crt) for the domain name from the hosting side. Read more about the procedure of SSL certificate implementation here.
2. Ensure the files above match each other and the domain name itself. For this purpose, do the following:

a) Check whether your certificate is created for the domain, you'd like to implement it for:

You may decode your SSL certificate on any open source. This one is the example:

https://www.sslshopper.com/certificate-decoder.html

If the settings are correct, you'll see your custom domain in the list of the domains your certificate:

b) Check whether your certificate and private key match each other:

You may use any open source to check that. This following tool is the example:
Use the following 'Certificate and Key matcher' tool:

https://www.sslshopper.com/certificate-key-matcher.html

If the Certificate and the Key match each other, you'll see the related note, as shown above.

3. Once all the steps above are done, share your SSL certificate with the Affise Support Team via your internal live-chat or [e-mail].

  Troubleshooting - Old cache

You may face the following query while checking your DNS configuration -  DNS cache is full, and you see several IP addresses in the command line. 

You can solve the case with the help of the following command "ipconfig" or "flushdns".  

You may also find helpful the following articles:

• How to set up a custom domain name?
• Settings

 If you have more questions on Domains and SSL certificates implementation, feel free to contact the Affise Support Team via [e-mail] or your Dedicated Account Manager.

Updated by Anastasia Dziaruhina