2019-09-09-getting-a-domain.html (2638B) - raw

      1 <!-- title: Getting my own domain name -->
      2 <!-- slug: getting-a-domain -->
      3 <!-- categories: Decentralization, Personal domain -->
      4 <!-- date: 2019-09-09T00:00:00Z -->
      5 <!-- lastmod: 2020-03-01T00:00:00Z -->
      6 
      7 <p>
      8   After thinking about getting my own domain name for a while and letting the thought rest for a
      9   couple of months, I finally bought one. It is a very easy and inexpensive process, and I am happy
     10   I did it. The original idea was to set up my email with it, so I could change my email provider
     11   without changing the address (I am in the process of changing my provider, and it takes a lot of
     12   effort), but having a domain name opens a world of opportunities.</p>
     13 <!-- /p -->
     14 
     15 <hr />
     16 
     17 <p>
     18   Although I had known about how to get a domain for a while, I didn't have much experience on which
     19   companies were "better" or "worse" (since I only needed a domain but no hosting, I am not sure why
     20   a company could give me a more appealing offer, since prices are the same in all websites). I
     21   finally decided to go with <a href="https://www.gandi.net">Gandi.net</a> because a known site uses
     22   it, I had heard about it on the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fediverse">Fediverse</a>,
     23   and it looked like a good and reliable company. The hardest part was figuring out which domain I
     24   wanted, once that was decided, buying it took around 5 minutes.</p>
     25 <!-- /p -->
     26 
     27 <p>
     28   Since I had never seen a DNS record before, configuring my email provider was a little trickier.
     29   My provider gave me some lines to copy and paste into the record, but they needed some
     30   modification in order to work, so it took me a little while to figure it out. The next part was
     31   setting a landing page for my domain: if someone saw my email address and wanted to check what <a
     32   href="https://obenedito.org">obenedito.org</a> was all about, I didn't want them to get a 404. So
     33   I designed a very simple page with my name and a link to my email address and one to my GitLab
     34   account. Since I don't have a home server or a VPS, I decided to host my page on GitLab (basically
     35   because it's free and I don't need a dynamic website). I once again had some trouble setting up
     36   the GitLab custom domain—the lines I was given to add to the record weren't the ones I actually
     37   needed to add, so that took a bit to figure out as well.</p>
     38 <!-- /p -->
     39 
     40 <p>
     41   I still have a lot to learn about how DNS records work (for instance the difference between a type
     42   A or CNAME entry), but, for now, it works just fine.</p>
     43 <!-- /p -->
     44 
     45 <p><em>Edit</em>: My personal domain has been moved to <a href="https://oscarbenedito.com">oscarbenedito.com</a>.</p>