Use Amazon Route 53 to point a domain to a Lightsail instance - Amazon Lightsail
PrerequisitesPoint a domain to a Lightsail instance using Route 53

Use Amazon Route 53 to point a domain to a Lightsail instance

The DNS zone in Amazon Lightsail makes it easy to point a registered domain name, like example.com, to your website running on a Lightsail instance. You can create up to six Lightsail DNS zones, and not all DNS record types are supported. For more information about Lightsail DNS zones, see DNS.

If the Lightsail DNS zone is too limited for you, then we recommend using an Amazon Route 53 hosted zone to manage your domain’s DNS records. You can manage the DNS for up to 500 domains using Route 53, and it supports a greater variety of DNS record types. Or, you might already be using Route 53 to manage your domain’s DNS records and prefer to continue using it. This guide shows you how to edit the DNS records for a domain managed in Route 53 to point to your Lightsail instance.

Prerequisites

Complete the following prerequisites if you haven’t already done so:

  • Register a domain name using Route 53. For more information, see Registering a New Domain in the Route 53 documentation.

  • If you already registered a domain but you’re not using Route 53 to manage its records, then you must transfer management of the DNS records for your domain to Route 53. For more information, see Making Amazon Route 53 the DNS Service for an Existing Domain in the Route 53 documentation.

  • Create a public hosted zone for your domain in Route 53. For more information, see Creating a Public Hosted Zone in the Route 53 documentation.

  • Create a static IP and attach it to your Lightsail instance. In this guide, you create a DNS record in your domain’s Route 53 hosted zone that resolves to the static IP address (public IP address) of your instance. For more information, see Create a static IP and attach it to an instance.

Point a domain to a Lightsail instance using Route 53

Complete the following steps to configure the two most common DNS records, address and canonical name, in Route 53 to point your domain to a Lightsail instance.

Note

This procedure is also documented in the Route 53 Developer Guide. For more information, see Creating Records by Using the Amazon Route 53 Console in the Route 53 documentation.

  1. Sign in to the Route 53 console.

  2. In the navigation pane, choose Hosted zones.

  3. Choose the hosted zone for the domain name that you want to use to route traffic to your load balancer.

  4. Choose Create record.

    The Quick create record page appears.

    Create a record in Route 53 to point an alias to your Lightsail load balancer
    Note

    If you see the Choose routing policy page, then choose Switch to quick create to switch to the quick create wizard before continuing with the following steps.

  5. For Record type, choose one of the following options:

    A - Routes traffic to an IPv4 address and some AWS resources

    An address (A) record maps a domain, such as example.com, or a subdomain, such as blog.example.com, to a web server’s IP address, such as 192.0.2.255.

    1. Keep the Record name text box empty to point the apex of your domain, such as example.com, to an IP address, or enter a subdomain.

    2. Choose A - Routes traffic to an IPv4 address and some AWS resources in the Record type drop-down menu.

    3. Enter the static IP address (public IP address) of your Lightsail instance in the Value text box.

    4. Keep the TTL of 300, and the routing policy as Simple routing.

      Address record example in a Route 53 hosted zone.
    CNAME - Routes traffic to another domain name and to some AWS resources

    A canonical name (CNAME) record maps an alias or subdomain, such as www.example.com, to a domain, such as example.com, or a subdomain, such as www2.example.com. A CNAME record redirects one domain to another.

    1. Enter a subdomain in the Record name text box.

    2. Choose CNAME - Routes traffic to another domain name and to some AWS resources in the Record type drop-down menu.

    3. Enter a domain (i.e., example.com) or subdomain (i.e., another.example.com) in the Value text box.

    4. Keep the TTL of 300, and the routing policy as Simple routing.

      Canonical name record example in a Route 53 hosted zone.

  6. Choose Create records to add the record to your hosted zone.

    Note

    Allow time for the change to propagate through the internet's DNS. This may take a few minutes to several hours.

    To edit an existing record set in the Route 53 hosted zone, choose the record to edit, enter your changes, and then choose Save.