Call your Site with your own DNS
on local using SXA
Overview:
There are a lot of bricks and pieces on the web who to setup DNS for a local Site in SXA but no end to end description. At least I could not find it. Here's one from A-Z
1. Decide for a DNS
2. Put DNS is Host File
3. Setup Self Signed Certificate (for local)
4. Setup Bindings
5. Do site configuration in Site Definition item
1. Decide for a DNS
I have plenty of Sitecore instances on my Notebook. That might get less in the future using Docker. Anyway to differentiate sites and sitecore instances I follow the pattern:
[sitecore_instance_prefix].[sitename].local e.g. 10sc.mysite.local
sitecore_instance_prefix
When installting sitecore instance you are creating a first DNS in your IIS so you can access the instance. This is usually following the pattern: [your_choice]sc.dev.local
I'm using the subdomain [your_choice]sc as [sitecore_instance_prefix]
sitename
The sitename is the name of the site that you have used when creating the site using the site creation wizard (that's a lot of "site"s in one sentence)
2. Put DNS is Host File
Using a Windows 10 machine you find your host file here: C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts
Open the file in a text editor.
Add an entry: e.g. 127.0.0.1 10sc.mysite.local
Save the file.
3. Setup Self Signed Certificate (for local)
Open IIS Manager
Select the Server node and doubleclick the "Server Certificates" button
Under the Actions, click "Create Self-Signed Certificate"
put in the DNS you are using for your site.
Select Personal.
Submit pressing OK.
More information: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/iis/manage/configuring-security/how-to-set-up-ssl-on-iis#iis-manager
Alternative: If you prefer the powershell way to create a certificate you find a script here: https://sitecore.stackexchange.com/questions/1224/how-do-you-setup-your-local-sitecore-instance-to-support-https-in-either-a-singl Make sure you open Powershell as Administrator!
4. Setup Bindings
Open IIS Manager.
Select the Site that represent your sitecore instance
And click on "Bindings" on the right side
Click the "Add" button of the dialog
4.1 HTTP Binding
If you want to add a http Binding, select Type http. The Port is set automatically to "80"
Add your Host name and submit pressing the "OK" button.
4.2 HTTPS Binding
If you want to add a https Binding, select Type https. The port is set automatically to "443"
Add your Host name
Select the SSL Certificate you created in step 3 and submit pressing the "OK" button.
5. Do site configuration in Site Definition item
When you have created your site already, navigate to sitecore/content/[your_tenant]/[your_site]/Settings/Site Grouping/[your_site]
Put the your DNS into the Host name field.
Save and publish the item, as well as your site if not yet done, as the site configuration in this case is used for web db (CD)
Note: You can pipe separate several DNSs to access your website and you can use "*" e.g. to reuse site configuration for each environment e.g. dev.mysite.com; pp.mysite.com; www.mysite.com --> *.mysite.com
The benefit of having the site config in the item is that the config change does not cause your instance to restart.
Created: 13.1.2021
SXA Multisite Sitecore Basics