Create your own Content Delivery Network (CDN)

Overview

As of version 0.5.1, Camino CMS includes limited support for Content Delivery Networks (CDNs). For many websites, using a 3rd party CDN would be prohibitively expensive, but it is possible to create your own CDN or cookieless domain from which you can serve static content to your Camino CMS website at little or no additional cost.

Using a CDN is often cited as a best practice to improve website performance.

Creating your own CDN

The easiest way to create your own CDN is to use a CNAME record aliasing to a sub-domain of your domain. Alternatively, you can register a separate domain, but this may be an unnecessary expense.

For this article, we will be using our domain of calzadamedia.com in all screenshots and instructions. Please transpose this address for your domain.

Creating a CDN Subdomain

Firstly, it is necessary to create a sub-domain to use as your CDN address. For simplicity, we recommend that you use a sub-domain called cdn, so the full CDN address will be http:///cdn.somedomain.com.

For websites hosted with Calzada Media, follow these steps to create the sub-domain:

1. Log into WebsitePanel
2. Click on the hosting space that contains the target website
3. Select Domains from the Hosting Space Menu
4. Click on the Add Domain button
5. Click on Sub-domain
6. Enter the sub-domain name in the textbox (in this case cdn) and then select the specified domain. Ensure that the option Create Web Site is unchecked/unticked and then click on the Add Domain button
7. WebsitePanel will now add the domain. Once completed, you will be returned back to the list of domains. Click on Web Sites from the Hosting Space Menu
8. If the list of websites contains the sub-domain you just created, click on its' name and then delete it.
9. From the list of websites, click on the website for whom you are creating the CDN.
10. Click on the Add Web Site Pointer button
11. Select the domain alias from the drop down menu and then click on the Add Pointer button.

Creating a CNAME record

Using your domain's control panel, create a CNAME record pointing at your domain's standard address. The CNAME record should look something like this:

Configuring Camino CMS

Once the above steps have been completed, you may configure Camino CMS to use the new CDN address.