How to set up a staging site

I also use a staging site, (staging.domain.com) How do I set the staging site up with your cdn under the same account? Thanks!

There’s probably some slick way to do this the “correct” way, but what’s stopping you from spinning up a completely different Netlify instance for your staging site? Once you get everything the way you want, you can delete the staging site and point your main / active site to the GitHub repo that has the new set of files.

I am very much a newbie. I tried to add a new domain. I wasn’t allowed to. How do I “spin up an instance”? Thanks!

Also the domain set up says, “Automatically provision DNS records and wildcard certificates for all subdomains.”

Could you tell me what it means? Thanks again!

As a newbie, the first thing you must learn to get the most benefit of fora such as this is to be as precise as you can in explaining what you are trying to achieve, and what is happening instead of what you were expecting.

For example, saying you weren’t allowed to add a new domain doesn’t make sense. You need to be more explicit.

Without knowing your workflow – another thing you could have mentioned – it’s more difficult to guide you on how to create a new site. So, let’s go through two of your options. In either case, you will need to be at the top level of the Netlify dashboard for your account.

If your project in is GitHub, then you click the button in the top right for “New site from GitHub.”

If you are ZIPping your project folder/directory, then you need to go to the bottom of your main dashboard page and drag-and-drop your ZIP file into the box to deploy a new site.

Finally, as for the message “Automatically provision DNS records and wildcard certificates for all subdomains.”, I don’t recall seeing that one. What are you trying to do and where are you seeing it?

Hi, @jzychik, and welcome to our Netlify community site.

The correct answer depends on whether or not you are using Netlify DNS. If so, you can enable the branch subdomain by enabling the branch name under ‘Site Name’ > Settings > Build & deploy > Deploy contexts.

If you are using an external DNS service, then the solution can be found here:

Which method are you using for DNS?

I’m using Namecheap. I’m very happy with them. Please advise further. Thanks!

Hi, @jzychik. The “common issue” above explains the steps required. Have you completed steps 1 and 2 there?

Those steps are:

  • Successfully Deploy the Branch to Netlify
  • Create the DNS record with your current DNS provider

If this is complete, please let us know the which site and branch the SSL certificate is required for.

Also, if you prefer, there is another way. You can make a new Netlify site linked to the same repo but select the “production” branch as being the branch you want to use for staging. The final step would be to add the custom domain to the new site.

If there are questions about either method, please let us know.

Hi. I’m a newbie. I don’t have the technical abilities to keep up with the advice you’ve been giving me. I deleted the zone. I want to thank you for your time. Maybe someday in the future I will have the skills to use your service.

Joe

@jzychik! Let’s make sure you get the help you need, it’s not common that it’s this tricky - one of the many things people love about our service is that it is easy to use.
I am going to move this conversation to the helpdesk so we can walk through the steps with you to get this working.

Thank you very much! I just added the domain and responded to the e-mail I received from support!

Joe

I admit I did not read all the above conversation, but @jzychik are you sure you need this to be at staging.domain.com? For close to zero effort you can get a preview deployment of every pull request you create at your githup repo.

It will have a complicated name like https://deploy-preview-6--angry-tereshkova-959566.netlify.com (a preview deploy for http://sonomamatsuri.com/)

See :

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