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SimonSmithSimonSmith 

CNAME daisy-chaining for end-user customization

Is there any way to allow daisy-chaining of CNAMES? For example:

 

CNAME.EndUser.com --> CNAME.OurDomain.com --> OurDomain.Force.com 

 

I'm quite sure this functionality doesn't yet exist, but I'm wondering if it might ever so we can determine whether Force.com Sites can support our business requirements. I also think it's an important consideration for any end-user customizable applications people might want to build on Force.com. 

 

We're developing an application to provide customers with customized web pages. We want to offer a high degree of customization, including subdomains. Without going into too much detail on the functionality, imagine that we create a page for Company A. The page is served from a Force.com site at www.CustomizedPages.com. This part is fairly straightforward; we just create a CNAME record with our domain registrar.  

 

But now imagine that Company A wants to display a customized page under its own domain, such as at CustomizedPage.CompanyA.com. They would need to do this with a CNAME to www.CustomizedPages.com, which in turn would CNAME to the Force.com Sites platform.

 

Problem is, Force.com Sites doesn't know what to do with the CNAME CustomizedPage.CompanyA.com. So it doesn't handle the request, and doesn't render the page. 

 

So, two questions:

 

  1. Is it currently possible to handle this, such as by writing a custom error handler? 
  2. If it's not currently possible to this, might it ever be? 

 

If the answer to both questions is no, we'll probably need to bypass Force.com Sites for another platform, which would be a shame given how rapidly we've been able to develop our prototype application.

 

Thanks for all help,

Simon 

 

 

 

Best Answer chosen by Admin (Salesforce Developers) 
BulentBulent

if your questions is about using your own custom SSL certificate then the answer is not yet, on the roadmap.

If the question is staying http after login and continue using your own custom domain name (in http) then the answer is yes, you need the check the stay http check box on the logins settings page of your site. 

All Answers

BulentBulent
CNAME'ing works at the site level not at the page level. In enterprise edition and unlimited edition you can create up to 25 sites and each site can have it's own custom url.
SimonSmithSimonSmith

Thanks, Bulent. I completely understand that we can create up to 25 sites for our organization. What we're looking to do:

 

  1. Create one site at www.OurDomain.com
  2. Create an application here that customers can integrate into their websites
  3. Allow customers to customize the domain for instances of this application 
For example, let's say we built a blogging application like WordPress. Customers can have their blog at CustomerDomain.Wordpress.com. But if they upgrade their account, they can have it on a custom domain like Blog.CustomerDomain.com. 
 
If we, or anyone else, wanted to create an application with that level of customization, it doesn't seem possible. This isn't a huge limitation, but it is a limitation, and I just want to know whether there's any way to address it.
 
Using the 25 sites provided with our Enterprise Edition wouldn't really work because (a) we'd be limited to 25 customers; (b) it would be time consuming to set up an application for each customer instance; (c) it doesn't make sense for what we're trying to accomplish?
 
Have I explained this well? Do you have any questions or need any further examples for what we're trying to accomplish? 

 
BulentBulent
I understand the use case. In the future we might support multiple custom domain names per site but currently there is no workaround. 
SimonSmithSimonSmith

Thanks. I posted this idea: Allow indefinite custom domains per site. 

 

If anyone else thinks this would be a good idea, and help with their own websites and end-user customizable applications, please vote for the idea. 
Joe GaskaJoe Gaska

 

Is there any way to override the Secure Web Address used once logged in?  No problem getting everything rolling was just curious, never tried to override that.

 

Thanks
BulentBulent

if your questions is about using your own custom SSL certificate then the answer is not yet, on the roadmap.

If the question is staying http after login and continue using your own custom domain name (in http) then the answer is yes, you need the check the stay http check box on the logins settings page of your site. 

This was selected as the best answer
Joe GaskaJoe Gaska
Yes, that is what I thought.  Was hoping with the new certificate management release in the previous release the functionality was available.  Thanks again though.