Adding New Sites

What is a site?

A site can be configured on your servers. Essentially, if your server is going to serve websites or apps, then creating a site on a server will handle those requests.

What types of sites can I add?

The following sites types can be added to your provisioned servers.

AdonisJS

A JavaScript / Typescript framework. Runs with NodeJS. Cleavr is compatible with Adonis version 4 and 5.

Laravel

A PHP-based web-framework. Runs with PHP and NodeJS.

NuxtJS

A VueJS framework. Runs with NodeJS. You can set up either a Server Side Rendered app type or a Static / JAMstack app type.

NextJS

A React framework. Runs with NodeJS and is Server Side Rendering (SSR).

Directus

A Node-based back-end framework that fits on top of any SQL database and provides strong data management capabilities.

Strapi

A Node-based headless CMS that is powerful and productive.

NodeJS

A JavaScript runtime. Runs with NodeJS. You can set up either a Server Side Rendered app type or a Static / JAMstack app type.

WordPress

WordPress is a free and open-source content management system (CMS) written in PHP and paired with a MySQL or MariaDB database. You will need a database and your preferred version of PHP installed on your server to create your WordPress site.

Soketi

Fast, real-time data.

PHP

A general-purpose scripting language. Runs with PHP.

Static HTML

Looking to rock pure vanilla HTML, CSS, and JavaScript? You don’t need to install any of the optional environments on your server to run static HTML sites.

Generic Port App

If you have an app or dashboard that is running locally over a port on your server, you can add a Generic Port App to expose the dashboard with a custom a free-Cleavr domain.

Add a site

1. Select the server you want the site to be installed on
2. Select Sites
3. Select Add a new site
4. Select your desired site type
5. Fill in the domain name or select the option to use a free, SSL enabled Cleavr provided subdomain. See www and non-www rules
6. Select whether or not you want to secure your site with SSL certificates - you can secure now or you can secure afterwards; if you secure after site creation, you have the additional option of applying a custom SSL certificate, such as one from Cloudflare for example

Additional Options

Wildcard subdomains

Before proceeding with enabling wildcard subdomains, you must first have a DNS Profile setup in Cleavr.

In your DNS Records, you must also have a the hostname and a wildcard (*) A-record that points to your server's public IP address.

If you want to use wildcard subdomains with your app, you must enable this feature during site creation. You cannot add it afterwards.

Enabling wildcard allows you to handle wildcard domains with your application. For WordPress multi-site, you'll want to enable wildcards if you plan to use subdomains.

Cleaver can also auto apply SSL certificates. If you enable both Let's Encrypt and Wildcard Subdomains, then you'll need to select a DNS Profile to manage applying SSL certificates to wildcard subdomains.

NGINX and FastCGI Caching

You can enable NGINX or FastCGI caching during site setup. You may also enable/disable and further configure caching options after site creation.

Databases

When setting up Adonis, Laravel, or WordPress sites, you can also set up the database at this time as well. Cleavr will go a step further and update environment variables for Adonis and Laravel apps to connect to your database - making deployments just that much more effortless.

Web Directory

For PHP and Static HTML sites, select the web directory so Cleavr knows what folder to server your site from.

How do I point my domain to the server?

For your site to render, you will need to point your domain to the applicable web provider.

Follow these standard directions to point your domain to your provisioned server.

1. Go to your domain registrar (such as GoDaddy, Network Solutions, Name Cheap, etc)
2. Find your domain and point the DNS to your cloud provider; go to your cloud provider to find out what DNS servers to point your domain to (if your provider doesn’t make this readily available, google usually points you in the right direction fairly quickly)
3. Go to your cloud provider
4. Find the ‘domains’ or ‘sites’ section of your cloud provider
5. Add your domain and point the a-record to your provisioned server’s public IP Address

What if I forget to add an environment dependency before creating a site?

Cleavr has your back! If you forgot to install a dependency while adding a site, then Cleavr will detect which dependencies are required and will install the latest version for you so that you can keep moving forward with little fuss.

WWW and non-WWW rules

When you add a domain / hostname, it is your choice to add www or not.

Many websites now leave out www; however, you can choose to make that your root domain if you'd like.

Redirects

If you add www, such as www.example.com, then Cleavr will automatically redirect incoming example.com requests to www.example.com.

Similarly, if you do not add www, such as example.com, then Cleavr will automatically redirect incoming www.example.com requests to example.com.

DNS Records

For the redirects to take place, you will also need to ensure the DNS records for the root @ record and the www A record both point to the server's public IP that your site is listed on.

SSL Certs

If you choose to take advantage of the www to non-www redirects, or vice-versa, we advise that you also add SSL certs for both records.

By default, when enabling LetsEncrypt during site creation, Cleavr will add a cert for the domain you are creating your site with. To add both, go to the SSL section for your site, remove the existing cert if you had one added during creation, and then add a new LetsEncrypt cert, or custom if you choose, and add both hostnames in the Domains entry field. For example, add example.com, www.example.com. Use a comma to separate domains.

Click Activate to add new SSL certs.