5  Create an addon domain

If following the recommendation to use one domain for the hosting account and another for actually hosting your site, an addon domain is required.

This procedure can be used to create an addon domain or a subdomain, with the only difference being in how the domain field is specified.

While a subdomain is accessed by prefixing the domain with the subdomain separated by a ., an addon domain is for a separate domain, and so is accessed using that domain only. It can also be accessed as a subdomain of the account domain, where cPanel derives the subdomain name from the addon domain name, usually by stripping off the top-level domain parts like .com or .com.au. In this case, Smallsite Design will redirect to use the addon domain name on its own, including the original path.

Adding an addon domain only sets up the necessary structures for the server to handle requests for the domain. The domain name registrar's server needs to point at the hosting supplier's DNS servers to make the server accessible from the internet. See Point to the hosting DNS servers.

If the domain or subdomains are internationalised (contain Unicode), for the Domain field the internationalised parts must be entered in what is called Punycode. Use a Punycode converter to get the correct form. For example, datubāze.點看.com becomes xn--datubze-w3a.xn--c1yn36f.com. Notice that each converted part is prefixed by xn--. Both the Unicode and Punycode text versions will work in browsers.

As with a subdomain, an addon domain needs a separate folder within the account's primary domain's public_html folder in the account home folder. Use the domain name for an addon, or the subdomain.domain form for a subdomain. While Punycode could be used for the folder name, perhaps use a more recogisable name using ASCII characters to replace each Punycode part.

Note that existing addon domains and subdomains can have subdomains of their own.

Steps△

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The role to perform this procedure is: Site owner.

To create an addon domain (or subdomain):1Log into the cPanel console⬒︎

if not already.

2Open the Domains page⬒︎

by clicking the Domains link in the Domains section.

3Initiate the creation⬒︎

by clicking on the Create A New Domain button.

4Enable specifying a separate folder for the domain⬒︎☰︎

by clicking on the Share document root checkbox to uncheck it.

When checked, the new [sub]domain becomes an alias of the account's primary domain, which is definitely not what is wanted here. Unchecking gives the opportunity to specify the new [sub]domain's root folder, separate from the primary domain's public_html, though it can be within it.

Checking this would be useful if needing to have alias URLs that capture common misspellings or that would be used for malicious misleading mixed-script URLs that contain lookalike letters to the primary domain. Large businesses are typically needing to do this to make sure that potential customers are not misled into visiting cybersquatted or malicious sites.

5Specify required information⬒︎

by taking the actions of:

#	Field	Action	Example
a	Domain	Type the domain name or a subdomain as subdomain.domain, using the Punycode version by converting it	mydomain.com mysub.mydom.com
b	Share document root	Uncheck to be able to specify the domain or subdomain root folder[1]	unchecked
c	document root	Type the domain name or subdomain.domain, prefixed by public_html/. Use representative lowercase ASCII names in internationalised parts	public_html/mydomain.com public_html/mysub.mydom.com

6Create the account⬒︎

by clicking the Submit button.

The Domains page is displayed again with the new domain or subdomain added to the list.

Return to the procedure: Overall setup procedure  Step: 3   Depth: 1