With the launch of EdgeRules™ and HTTP 1.1 to the origin, you can take advantage of Full Site Acceleration on NetDNA’s CDN. This will optimize all traffic between your origin servers, our edge servers, and most importantly: your customers.
As with any infrastructure change, let’s test the update before pushing it live. This post covers 3 quick steps to safely enable Full Site Acceleration for your site.
Step 1: Prepare Your Web Server
The key to a safe migration is making a new hostname to access your content, having the CDN pull from the new location, and finally updating DNS to use the CDN.
First, add the new hostname (such as origin-www.yourdomain.com) to your web server’s configuration:
Apache
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Listen 80 NameVirtualHost *:80 <VirtualHost *:80> DocumentRoot /www/yourdomain ServerName www.yourdomain.com # Other directives here </VirtualHost> <VirtualHost *:80> DocumentRoot /www/yourdomain ServerName origin-www.yourdomain.com # Other directives here </VirtualHost> |
Nginx
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server { listen 80; server_name www.yourdomain.com origin-www.yourdomain.com; # Other directives here } |
IIS
- http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc753195(v=ws.10).aspx
- http://forums.iis.net/post/1921240.aspx
Step 2: Create a Pull Zone
Next, open the NetDNA Control Panel and create a new Pull Zone. Use the new hostname (origin-www.yourdomain.com) as the origin server, and add the public URL (www.yourdomain.com) as a custom CDN domain.
If you need to update your Custom CDN Domain later, use Pull Zones > Settings.
Notice the CNAME entry we generate for you (i.e., fullsite.yourcompany.netdna-cdn.com). Don’t make any DNS changes yet — we have testing to do.
Step 3: Test the CDN
To test the CDN, change the hostname settings on your local machine.
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$ host yourdomain.yourcompany.netdna-cdn.com yourdomain.yourcompany.netdna-cdn.com has address 108.161.188.192 |
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108.161.188.192 www.yourdomain.com |
Use a WebPageTest script to change the DNS settings and navigate to the URL (more about scripting on WPT):
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setDns www.yourdomain.com 108.161.188.192 navigate http://www.yourdomain.com |
Ready? Change your DNS
Once all your tests have passed, point your DNS entry for www.yourdomain.com to the NetDNA CNAME (i.e., yourdomain.yourcompany.netdna-cdn.com). Set a low TTL (5 minutes, 300 seconds) in case you need to switch back. Once you’ve confirmed everything is working, increase the TTL to 24 hours (86400 seconds) or more.
Lastly, make sure to 301 redirect yourdomain.com to www.yourdomain.com, so all traffic is served from the CDN:
Apache
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RewriteEngine On IndexIgnore * Options +FollowSymLinks -Multiviews -Indexes RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^yourdomain\.com$ [NC] RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.yourdomain.com/$1 [R=301,L] |
Nginx
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server { server_name yourdomain.com; rewrite ^(.*) http://www.yourdomain.com$1 permanent; } |
IIS
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<rewrite> <rules> <rule name="non www to www" enabled="true"> <match url="(.*)" /> <conditions> <add input="{HTTP_HOST}" negate="true" pattern="^www\.([.a-zA-Z0-9]+)$" /> </conditions> <action type="Redirect" url="<a href="http://www.{HTTP_HOST}/{R:0">http://www.{HTTP_HOST}/{R:0</a>}" appendQueryString="true" redirectType="Permanent" /> </rule> </rules> </rewrite> |
- http://www.dotnetexpertguide.com/2011/08/iis-7-redirect-domaincom-to.html
- http://www.petermoss.com/post/How-to-redirect-non-www-domain-to-www-domain-requests-in-IIS-7.aspx
That’s it! Your entire site is being served from the edge. To see how NetDNA can help you accelerate your site please contact sales.