By default, your BoxCast OTT web app is assigned a 6 character subdomain of viewcastle.tv. For example, t1kro4.viewcastle.tv, where t1kro4 is your web app's unique subdomain (we will refer to this unique subdomain as your app's app_id going forward in this article). However, you can set up your own domain making it easier for your audience to find and access your web app.

Most likely you have your own domain, such as yourdomain.com, that you'd like your audience to visit in order to view your OTT web app and its content. To do this, you need to point www.yourdomain.com at your OTT web app's default subdomain.

Keep in mind that if you already have a website hosted at www.yourdomain.com that you do not want to replace, then you'll need to either purchase a new domain or use a subdomain. If you'd like to use a subdomain instead, such as tv.yourdomain.com, then jump ahead to Using a Subdomain below.

Before your domain or subdomain can be used, it must first be validated. Validation lets us know that you own or administrate the domain or subdomain that you wish to use with your BoxCast OTT web application. This requires creating new CNAME records in your domain host’s DNS records section.

Because validation tokens are unique for every client, you will receive a bespoke set of tokens to use when you submit your desired domain or subdomain to the fulfillment team. Simply navigate to the BoxCast OTT Fulfillment Portal and complete the assigned task “Provide Your Custom Domain.”

After the fulfillment team has received your desired domain or subdomain, you will receive a set of instructions titled “Validate Your Custom Domain.” Simply follow the instructions to complete the validation process.

Please note that validation tokens become inactive if not used. If you do not validate your domain or subdomain within 48 hours, please let your account manager know.

To ensure that your visitors can reach your web app when adding 'www' in the address (yourdomain.com vs. www.yourdomain.com), you'll need to create the following DNS record:

Type: CNAME

Host: www

Destination: [app_id].viewcastle.tv (replace [app_id] with your web app's unique subdomain)

TTL: 1 hour (3600 seconds)

It can take a few minutes or even a few hours for your changes to propagate around the world. You can check your URL here to see its status throughout various locations across the globe. When it has finished propagating, each location should resolve www.yourdomain.com to [app_id].viewcastle.tv.

Your root domain is simply yourdomain.com without the 'www' in front. Most likely you'll want users to be able to type this into their browsers and still access your BoxCast OTT web app. There are two ways to achieve this: 1) redirecting your root domain to 'www' (preferred) or 2) pointing your root domain to [app_id].viewcastle.tv.

Ideally you'll want your root domain to redirect to www.yourdomain.com. This means when a user types yourdomain.com the URL will automatically get replaced with www.yourdomain.com. Most modern browsers will do this by default, but just in case, you'll want to consult your domain hosting platform on setting up a redirect for your root domain. This will ensure that even if the browser doesn't do it, your domain server will redirect to www.yourdomain.com anyway. We've provided some generic instructions for setting up redirects under our Common Domain Hosting Platform Instructions section below.

If your domain hosting platform does not have a way to set up redirects, you should be able to create a CNAME record for your root domain as an alternative solution. This means you can simply point your root domain directly to [app_id].viewcastle.tv. The downside is that if a user types yourdomain.com into their browser and their browser doesn't redirect them by default, then the URL will continue to read as yourdomain.com (without the 'www') but your web app will still load for them as expected. To do this, you'll need to create the following DNS record:

Type: CNAME

Host: @ (some domain hosting platforms will require leaving this blank instead)

Destination: [app_id].viewcastle.tv (replace [app_id] with your web app's unique subdomain)

TTL: 1 hour (3600 seconds)

Again, it can take a few minutes to a few hours for this change to propagate around the world. Just like when configuring 'www', you can check your URL here to see its propagation status. Be sure to search for yourdomain.com without the 'www' this time when checking the status.

If you already have an existing website at 'www' and still plan to use it, but you want to use the same domain for your BoxCast OTT web app, then you'll want to point a subdomain to it. Your subdomain could be anything, for example tv.yourdomain.com, where tv is your subdomain. To do this, you'll need to create the following DNS record:

Type: CNAME

Host: (Enter the name of your subdomain, this could be anything, for example: tv)

Destination: [app_id].viewcastle.tv (replace [app_id] with your web app's unique subdomain)

TTL: 1 hour (3600 seconds)

That's it! You don't need to worry about your root domain when using a subdomain because your root domain should always redirect or point to whatever site you are already hosting at 'www'.

It can take a few minutes to a few hours for this change to propagate around the world. You can check your URL here to see its status throughout various locations across the globe. When it has finished propagating, each location should resolve to [app_id].viewcastle.tv.

If you're using Godaddy as your domain hosting platform then follow these instructions in order to add a CNAME record to your DNS.

If you're using Godaddy as your domain hosting platform then follow these instructions in order to create a redirect (aka "forward") from your root domain URL to your 'www' URL.

If you're using NameCheap as your domain hosting platform then follow these instructions in order to add a CNAME record to your DNS.

If you're using NameCheap as your domain hosting platform then follow these instructions in order to create a redirect (aka "forward") from your root domain URL to your 'www' URL.