Question

Setup DNS for my droplet

Posted on April 8, 2025
DNS
Asked by sap

Hi, I have my domain on Namecheap and I don’t want to move nameservers.

I am trying to point app.mydomain.com to the droplet, and I added this subdomain on DigitalOcean.

I added an A record on Namecheap that points to the IP of the droplet. It’s been over 24 hours now, and the domain still doesnt work for me.

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Bobby Iliev

Site Moderator

• April 9, 2025

Hey there 👋

If you’ve kept your domain on Namecheap and added an A record pointing app.mydomain.com to your Droplet’s IP, that’s generally all you need.

First, make sure the A record is actually for app and not something like www.app. Then, check that your web server, whether it’s Nginx or Apache, is properly configured to serve traffic for app.mydomain.com. If the server isn’t set up to recognize the domain, you’ll get a default page or an error.

It’s also worth running a quick DNS lookup with dig app.mydomain.com or using a tool like https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tools/dns to confirm that your record has propagated globally. Keep in mind that DNS changes can sometimes take time, and local DNS caching or browser cache might delay what you see, trying in incognito mode or flushing your DNS cache can help.

Let me know what the exact error is that you are getting.

- Bobby

KFSys

Site Moderator

• April 10, 2025

Heya,

Make sure your DNS has actually propagated:

https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tools/dns

It sounds to me like the A record you have created for your subdomain is not actually working at all.

alexdo

Site Moderator

• April 10, 2025