Deploying Your Blog

Have a challenge with any of this? Let us know and we’ll help!

This can get a little tricky so we’ll walk through this example with Namecheap and provide some screenshots.

• Add a file to the root of the repository called CNAME. The contents of the file should be the domain name or subdomain you’re deploying to, e.g. blog.mysite.com or bloginaboxdemo.com.
• Save the file, commit it, and merge the change.
  • (are these terms completely unfamiliar? That’s ok! Feel free to create an issue in this repository and we’ll help you walk through it.)

Next up, it’s time to Get the GitHub Pages settings in place.

• In your repository on GitHub, navigate to the Settings tab and click it.
• On the left-hand navigation, choose Pages for pages settings.
• From the Source drop-down, select the main branch. You can think of this branch like “production”. Anything merged into it will get published (unless it’s a future post).
• Change the Folder option from /(root) to /docs and click Save.
• Note: we’re not going to choose a theme, because we’re already using a theme that comes bundled with our blog.

With those settings in place, next we need to go to our domain registrar or the organization who handles DNS (in our example, we’re using Namecheap, because Sean loves them.) We’re going to follow the GitHub Pages custom domain instructions here. The instructions below work if you’re using an “apex” or “naked” domain, such as our bloginaboxdemo.com site. If you’re using a sub-domain, follow the instructions at the above link. Create an issue if you get stuck, and we’ll help you.

• Log into Namecheap and go to the domain’s settings.
• Click the “Advanced DNS” button” to go to DNS settings
• If it’s a new domain, remove any default DNS records that are there. Otherwise, be careful what you change (and feel free to ask us for help by creating an issue).
• For each of the IP Addresses in the Apex domain instructions (at the time, 185.199.108.153, 185.199.109.153, 185.199.110.153, 185.199.111.153):
  • Create a new record, of type A.
  • Make the host @ (which is short-hand for the “naked domain”, or yoursite.com).
  • Make the value the IP address
  • Repeat for all IP addresses
• Click to save your changes.
• Next you’ll likely want to create a www subdomain so that www.yoursite.com and yoursite.com go to the same place.
  • Create a new DNS record, of type CNAME. Set the host as www, and the value as yourusername.github.io. For example, this repo is hosted on the excellalabs org, so our value would be excellalabs.github.io.

Here’s an example of how the DNS records might look:

At this point, your DNS changes should be live soon (they take some time to propagate – sometimes more than 24 hours). Then, your blog should be available at the URL you configured.

Now we can enforce HTTPS, which is important for the security of the web.

• Go back to the GitHub Pages settings
• Check the Enforce HTTPS option. You’ll see a green checkmark after it automatically saves.