Skip to content

Getting Started with Peakhour

This tutorial will guide you through the essential first steps to get your website protected and accelerated by Peakhour. By the end, your domain will be fully configured and live on our network.

Duration: 15 minutes Prerequisites: A Peakhour account and access to your domain's DNS provider. Learning Goals: Understand the onboarding process, configure your domain, and go live with Peakhour.

Sign Up and Initial Setup

  1. Sign Up: Go to the Peakhour signup page and enter your domain name and email address. Our system will automatically scan your DNS records to find your origin server's IP address.
  2. Review Options: On the next screen, confirm that the detected origin IP for your website is correct. You can also choose your initial service preferences, such as enabling site optimization and security features.
  3. Complete Signup: Finalize the signup process to create your account and add your domain to the Peakhour dashboard.

Configure SSL/TLS

For your site to be secure, it needs an SSL certificate. Peakhour simplifies this process.

  1. Initial State (Passthrough): When you first add your domain, Peakhour is in "SSL Passthrough" mode. This means any HTTPS requests are passed directly to your origin server, ensuring your site remains online while you configure DNS.
  2. Automatic Certificate Provisioning: Once you point your domain's DNS to Peakhour (in the next step), we will automatically provision a free Let's Encrypt certificate for you. This process is fully automated, including renewals.
  3. (Optional) Upload a Custom Certificate: If you have your own SSL certificate, you can upload it in the TLS section of your domain dashboard. Uploading a custom certificate will disable the automatic Let's Encrypt provisioning.

Point Your Domain to Peakhour

This is the final step to go live. You will need to update your DNS records with your DNS provider (e.g., GoDaddy, Cloudflare, Namecheap).

  1. Find Your Peakhour CNAME: In your Peakhour dashboard, navigate to the Settings page for your domain. You will find a unique CNAME record in the format yourdomain.com.peakhour.zone.
  2. Update DNS Records:
    • www record: Change your www subdomain record from an A record to a CNAME record, and point it to your Peakhour CNAME (yourdomain.com.peakhour.zone).
    • Root (@) record: If your DNS provider supports CNAME flattening (also known as ANAME or ALIAS records), point your root domain to your Peakhour CNAME. Otherwise, point it as an A record to the IP address provided in your Peakhour dashboard.
  3. Verify Propagation: DNS changes can take some time to propagate. You can use online tools like dnschecker.org to monitor the progress.

For more detailed instructions, see our guide on Pointing Your Domain.

Post-Go-Live Checks (Optional but Recommended)

Once your traffic is flowing through Peakhour, consider these final configurations.

  1. Preserve Visitor IP Addresses: To ensure your server logs show the original visitor IP instead of Peakhour's IPs, you may need to configure your web server. See our guide on Preserving Visitor IP Addresses.
  2. Allow Peakhour IPs: In some cases, your server's firewall might block traffic from Peakhour. It's a good practice to add Peakhour's IP addresses to your firewall's allow list. The list is available here.
  3. Install a Plugin: If you use a popular CMS like WordPress or Magento, installing our plugin can help with seamless cache management. See our Integrations.

Congratulations! Your website is now live, accelerated, and protected by Peakhour.