To make your domain open a website, application, or service hosted on your LumaDock VPS, you need to point the domain to your VPS IP address.
LumaDock provides the VPS, public IP address, firewall tools, and reverse DNS management for VPS IPs. LumaDock does not currently host public DNS zones for domains and does not provide authoritative nameservers for domain DNS management.
This means you should manage your domain DNS records at your domain registrar or at a DNS provider such as Cloudflare, your registrar DNS panel, or another DNS hosting service.
Before you start
You will need:
Your domain name
Access to the DNS management panel for that domain
The public IPv4 address of your LumaDock VPS
You can find your VPS IP address in your LumaDock client area or in the server details/login information email.
Step 1 - Open your DNS provider
Log in to the provider where your domain DNS is managed.
This may be:
Your domain registrar
Cloudflare
Another DNS hosting provider
Open the DNS zone or DNS records section for your domain.
Step 2 - Add an A record for your domain
Create an A record that points your main domain to your VPS public IPv4 address.
Example:
Type | Name | Value |
A | @ | Your VPS IPv4 address |
The @ record usually represents the root domain, for example example.com.
Step 3 - Add a record for www
If you also want www.example.com to open the same website, add either an A record or a CNAME record.
Option 1 - A record:
Type | Name | Value |
A | www | Your VPS IPv4 address |
Option 2 - CNAME record:
Type | Name | Value |
CNAME | www | example.com |
Use whichever option your DNS provider recommends.
Step 4 - Save the DNS changes
After saving the records, DNS propagation can take some time.
Many updates start working within minutes, but depending on your DNS provider, resolver cache, and TTL settings, changes may take up to 24-48 hours to fully update worldwide.
Important note about nameservers
Do not set your domain nameservers to LumaDock nameservers unless LumaDock Support has specifically instructed you to do so for your account.
For most domains, you should keep the nameservers provided by your registrar or DNS provider and only add DNS records that point to your VPS IP address.
Reverse DNS / PTR records
Reverse DNS is different from normal domain DNS.
Normal DNS points a domain to an IP address, for example:
example.com -> VPS IP
Reverse DNS points an IP address back to a hostname, for example:
VPS IP -> mail.example.com
Reverse DNS is mainly used for email delivery, server identity, and network checks. It is not required for a website to point to your VPS.
If you need to configure reverse DNS for your VPS IP address, use the rDNS section in the LumaDock panel and create a PTR record for the relevant IP.
Example setup
For a domain called example.com hosted on a VPS with IP address 192.0.2.10, your DNS records would look like this:
Type | Name | Value |
A | @ | 192.0.2.10 |
A | www | 192.0.2.10 |
After propagation, both example.com and www.example.com will point to your LumaDock VPS.
Troubleshooting
If your domain does not resolve after updating DNS:
Confirm that the A record points to the correct VPS IP address.
Confirm that you edited the active DNS zone for the domain.
Check that your domain is using the correct nameservers for your chosen DNS provider.
Wait for DNS propagation to complete.
Make sure your web server is configured on the VPS.
Make sure the VPS firewall allows HTTP/HTTPS traffic on ports 80 and 443, if you are hosting a website.
Need help?
If you are unsure where your DNS is managed or which records to add, contact LumaDock Support by opening a ticket and include:
Your domain name
Your VPS IP address
A screenshot of your current DNS records
A screenshot of your domain nameserver settings
Our team will help you identify the correct DNS setup.