Configure a Custom Domain in Microsoft Azure

Introduction

 

I still have seen a few customers and developers asking me about issues configuring custom domains in Microsoft Azure. This article explains how to add custom domains to a  Azure website in detail. I hope this will help you fellas.

 

We can host 10 ASP.Net websites for free in Azure websites. But to configure a custom domain we need the website to be scaled to either SHARED, BASIC or STANDARD mode.

 

Let's see it in action.

 

Step 1

 

Purchase a domain from Go Daddy or Big Rock. I purchased a domain from Go Daddy named ramasagar.com.

 

Now open  Azure Portal and login with your Microsoft account.

 

Click on web apps and create a website from any option as shown below. Here I created ramasagarr.azurewebsites.net.

 

 

Step 2

 

By default the website will be created with a free subscription. So now we need to change it to either SHARED, BASIC or STANDARD mode as shown below. This requires an active subscription.

 

 

 

Once the website has been scaled to either SHARED or STANDARD, we can proceed further.

 

 Step 3

 

Now return to the Dashboard management page and click on manage domains at the bottom.

 

 

 

 

 

The pop-up window contains all the info on what as to be done. It suggests that before we add custom domains for the site, Azure needs to verify that the user is authorized to use the domain name.

 

Step 4

 

Now login to you Go Daddy account and click on mange my domains and go to the domain details page and click on DNS ZONE FILE and update the IP address that we copied above.

 

 

 

 Now click on Add record in CName (Alias) and add as shown below:

 

 

Step 5: Now let's map our domain to the Azure portal.

 

Click on manage domains in the Azure portal and enter the domain names as shown below:

 

 

That's it. Now we can see the domain is up and running.

 

Summary

In this article we learned about managing and configuring custom domains in the Azure portal.