Pointing a Github Pages Repo to a Hover Domain

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My blog is currently hosted using GitHub Pages—which is a great way to host your static site or blog for free—by linking it to my custom domain that I purchased through Hover. While both of these services are amazing, connecting the two required many open tabs and several waiting periods. This post will explain the steps needed to point a GitHub Pages repo to a custom domain on Hover.

Preflight Check

Before connecting GitHub Pages to a custom domain, I first updated my blog on my repository username.github.io, and checked that it was displaying properly at its default website (normally username.github.io).

Link the Repo to the Domain

First you need to update your repository with your custom domain. In the settings for the repo, enter the domain in the "Custom domain" in the GitHub Pages section.

A Records on Hover

The next step is to configure Hover. Find GitHub's current list of IP addresses to create records with. Then, go to your Hover account, select your domain, and go to the DNS tab) to add to the DNS tab on Hover. At the time of writing, these are:

185.199.108.153
185.199.109.153
185.199.110.153
185.199.111.153

Then, go to your Hover account, select your domain, and go to the DNS tab. Delete any DNS records that have an "A" under "Records".

For each IP address on GitHub's help pages, add a DNS record. For each, the "Type" will be A, the "Hostname" will be @, and the "TTL" can be left as the default value.

You'll also want to create a record with Type CNAME, Host www, and value [username].github.io, so that your site can be reached via www.yoursite.com. The final set of values should look like the ones below:

It may take several hours (or up to about a day) for the changes to take effect. Take a break, get some sleep, and then come back to your domain to make sure everything's working. Now we can enforce HTTPS!

CNAME File

In your GitHub repo, create a file named CNAME (no extension) in the root folder. In the new file, write the Hover domain you're using. Make sure the file is only one line. The file should resemble the one below:

Create HTTPS certificate

If you head back to your repo's settings page to enforce HTTPS, you might see the following "not yet available" error:

Per GitHub's troubleshooting page, you need to remove and then re-add your custom domain for your repository. Wait around 24 hours for the certificate to be generated, and you should be good to go!

Edit: Thanks to David Ryan for pointing out that I was missing the CNAME record!

Comments

[Charles]

Dumb question, but what do you have for your Hover nameserver set to? I had assumed that I could leave this blank when using DNS records... but Hover seems to require something to be in there. Are yours set to dns1.hover.com and dns2.hover.com ? Thanks in advance :)

[Nicky Marino]

Mine are set to ns1.hover.com and ns2.hover.com. Apologies for not specifying this in the original post!

[Charles]

hey no worries man - thanks for the quick reply!

[Stephanie]

Thanks for this post! This was exactly what I needed!

[Nicky Marino]

I double checked my configurations and I don't have a www CNAME record. It's possible that other setups might need it though.

[David Ryan]

You will need the CNAME for yoursitename.com to correctly resolve to the path you've set in GitHub. This ensures anyone using the www finds there way to the yourname.github.io and sees your wonderful site.

Check out: brendan-quinn.xyz/post/pointing-ho...

[Nicky Marino]

Good point, thanks! I've updated the post.