What is the complete process for setting up a custom domain?
Buy a domain, allocate an Elastic IP, configure DNS records (A and CNAME), set up Nginx server blocks for each subdomain, add SSL with Let's Encrypt, update backend CORS and cookies, update frontend env vars, verify everything works, and set up monitoring and auto-renewal.
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A record for @ (root domain) pointing to EC2 IP, A record for api subdomain pointing to EC2 IP, A record for app subdomain pointing to EC2 IP (or CNAME to Vercel), and CNAME for www pointing to yourdomain.com.
Backend: CLIENT_URL=https://app.yourdomain.com. Frontend: VITE_API_URL=https://api.yourdomain.com/api and VITE_SOCKET_URL=https://api.yourdomain.com. Also update CORS origins and cookie settings (secure: true, sameSite: none, domain: .yourdomain.com).
Check DNS (dig yourdomain.com A +short), HTTP to HTTPS redirect (curl -I http), HTTPS (curl -I https), API (curl https://api.yourdomain.com/api/health), frontend loads in browser, login works, cookies persist on refresh, WebSocket chat works, and SSL grade at ssllabs.com.
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