If you want to use Alibaba Cloud CDN to accelerate content delivery for a specified website, you must add the domain name that you want to accelerate to Alibaba Cloud CDN. After you add a domain name to be accelerated to Alibaba Cloud CDN, the system pushes the configuration of the domain name to all points of presence (POPs) without affecting the services of the domain name.

For more information about the health check policies on origin servers, see Configure a health check policy for an origin server.

Prerequisites

  1. An origin server that provides stable performance is deployed. The domain name that you want to accelerate is available.
    Note If the acceleration region is Chinese Mainland Only or Global, you must apply for an Internet Content Provider (ICP) number for the domain name. If the domain name does not have an ICP number, you can perform ICP filing by using Alibaba Cloud ICP Filing System.
  2. Alibaba Cloud CDN is activated. For more information, see Activate Alibaba Cloud CDN.

Step 1: Complete basic settings and specify business information

  1. Log on to the Alibaba Cloud CDN console.
  2. In the left-side navigation pane, click Domain Names.
  3. Click Add Domain Name and set the following parameters.
    Note The first time a domain name is added to Alibaba Cloud CDN, Alibaba Cloud CDN must verify the ownership of the domain name. Alibaba Cloud CDN verifies the ownership only of the root domain name. For more information, see Verify the ownership of a domain name. If the root domain name has already passed ownership verification, ignore this message.
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ParameterDescription
Domain Name to Accelerate
  • Domain name type: The domain name that you want to accelerate can be a specific domain name such as example.aliyundoc.com or a wildcard domain name such as *.aliyundoc.com.
  • Domain name format:
    • The domain name must be 1 to 67 characters in length.
    • The domain name can contain lowercase letters, digits, and hyphens (-). Example: example.com.
    • The domain name cannot contain Chinese characters, uppercase letters, or characters other than hyphens (-). The domain name cannot be a hyphen (-). A hyphen (-) in a domain name cannot be followed by another hyphen (-). The domain name cannot start or end with a hyphen (-). If the domain name contains Chinese characters such as 阿里云.网址, you must perform ICP filing for the Chinese domain name. Then, use the Punycode tool to convert the domain name into English characters such as xn--fiq****.xn--eq****. Specify the converted domain name as the domain name to be accelerated.
  • Requirements for wildcard domain names:
    • Alibaba Cloud CDN supports wildcard domain names. For information about the limits on wildcard domain names, see Does Alibaba Cloud CDN support wildcard domain names?
    • The wildcard domain name that you specify and the domain names that match the wildcard domain name must belong to the same Alibaba Cloud account. Otherwise, an error message appears when you add domain names.
    • If a wildcard domain name is not added to an Alibaba Cloud account, you are allowed to add the subdomains of the wildcard domain name to multiple Alibaba Cloud accounts.
    • Each wildcard domain name can match up to 500 specific domain names. If more than 500 specific domain names match a wildcard domain name, only the first 500 specific domain names can acquire the settings of the wildcard domain name. Other domain names cannot be accelerated by Alibaba Cloud CDN.
      Note The first 500 specific domain names that match the wildcard domain name can be accelerated by Alibaba Cloud CDN.
  • You cannot add domain names that have been added to other Alibaba Cloud services.

    If the system prompts that the domain name is added to other Alibaba Cloud services such as ApsaraVideo VOD and DCDN, you can transfer the domain name to Alibaba Cloud CDN. For more information, see Domain name transfer.

  • Each Alibaba Cloud account can add up to 50 domain names to Alibaba Cloud CDN.
    Note However, if the average daily peak bandwidth of your domain names exceeds 50 Mbit/s, you can request to add more domain names by following the method described in Quota management. Make sure that the increase of domain names does not cause business risks.
  • The content that is delivered from the domain name must be legal and compliant with the Terms of Service for Alibaba Cloud CDN. For more information about the limits, see Limits.
  • ICP filing: If you set the acceleration region of a domain name to Global or Chinese Mainland Only, you must apply for an ICP number for the domain name. We recommend that you use Alibaba Cloud ICP Filing System to apply for ICP numbers. For more information, see Prepare and check the instance and access information.
  • Domain name reclaiming: If your domain name is disabled for 120 days, Alibaba Cloud CDN deletes the configuration records that are related to the domain name. This rule also applies to domain names that fail ownership verification. If you want to continue using the domain name, you must go to the Alibaba Cloud CDN console to add the domain name again.
  • Domain name disabling: For more information, see Rules for disabling accelerated domain names.
  • Sandbox:If an accelerated domain name is under attack, such as DDoS attacks or HTTP flood attacks, or faces significant increases in bandwidth or QPS due to traffic spikes that have not been reported to Alibaba Cloud, Alibaba Cloud CDN has the right to determine whether to add the attacked domain name to a sandbox based on factors such as the service status of the domain name and the impact of the attack. This ensures that the acceleration services of other users can work as expected. For more information, see Introduction to sandboxes. If the attack is severe, other accelerated domain names in the same account are also added to the sandbox, and the addition of new domain names to the account is restricted.
Business Type
  • Image and small file distribution: accelerates the delivery of small-sized static content on websites, such as e-commerce content and game images.
  • Large file distribution: accelerates the delivery of static files that are larger than 20 MB.
  • On-demand audio and video streaming: accelerates the delivery of audio or video content.
  • DCDN: accelerates the delivery of both static and dynamic content. Dynamic Route for CDN (DCDN) can accelerate the delivery of large amounts of dynamic content.

    If you set Business Type to DCDN, you must follow the instructions to configure the domain name in the DCDN console. For more information, see Add a domain name.

Note The business type cannot be modified after it is set.
Region
  • Chinese Mainland Only: All requests are redirected to POPs that are deployed in the Chinese mainland. Requests from outside the Chinese mainland are redirected to POPs managed by China Telecom (East China Division).
  • Global: All requests are redirected to the nearest POPs.
  • Global (Excluding the Chinese Mainland): All requests are redirected to POPs that are deployed in Hong Kong (China), Macao (China), Taiwan (China), or other countries or regions outside the Chinese mainland. However, requests from the Chinese mainland are redirected to POPs that are deployed in Japan, Singapore, or Hong Kong (China).
Important
  • If you select Chinese Mainland Only or Global, you must apply for an ICP number for the accelerated domain name. We recommend that you use Alibaba Cloud ICP Filing System to apply for ICP numbers. The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) may not immediately update the data in the database after you submit domain name information. We recommend that you configure the domain name 8 hours after you submit the domain name information.
  • The pricing varies based on the acceleration region. Select an acceleration region based on your business requirements. For more information about the pricing of Alibaba Cloud CDN, see CDN Pricing.

Step 2: Set up origin servers

  1. After you complete the basic settings and specify business information, click Add Origin Server.
  2. In the Add Origin Server dialog box, set the following parameters.
    Configure an origin server
    ParameterDescription
    Origin Info

    Select the type of the origin server and enter the address of the origin server.

    • OSS domain name
      • If your origin server is an Object Storage Service (OSS) bucket, you can select or enter the public domain name of the OSS bucket, such as ***.oss-cn-hangzhou.aliyuncs.com. Alibaba Cloud CDN does not support internal domain names of OSS buckets.
      • You can obtain the public domain name of an OSS bucket in the OSS console. You can also select the domain name of an OSS bucket that belongs to the current Alibaba Cloud account from the Domain Name drop-down list.
      Note Discounts for data transfer between CDN and OSS:
      • If you want OSS to identify network traffic sent from CDN and apply for a discount on the data transfer, you must set the origin server type to OSS Domain in the CDN console.
      • If you set the origin server type to Site Domain in the Alibaba Cloud CDN console, OSS identifies network traffic sent from CDN as outbound data transfer over the Internet. In this case, the discounts do not apply.

      For more information, see Billing of OSS content acceleration.

    • IP address: You can configure one or more IP addresses for an origin server. Internal IP addresses are not supported. IPv4 addresses and IPv6 addresses are supported. At least one of the IP addresses must be an IPv4 address. If you use a public IP address of an Alibaba Cloud Elastic Compute Service (ECS) instance as the address of the origin server, the IP address is exempt from manual review.
    • Site Domain: Enter the domain names of one or more origin servers.
      Note
      • The origin domain name must be different from the accelerated domain name. Otherwise, a DNS resolution loop occurs, and requests cannot be redirected to the origin server.
      • The format of the origin domain name:
        • The domain name must be 1 to 67 characters in length.
        • The domain name can contain lowercase letters, digits, and hyphens (-). Example: example.com.
        • The domain name cannot contain Chinese characters, uppercase letters, or characters other than hyphens (-). The domain name cannot be a hyphen (-). A hyphen (-) in a domain name cannot be followed by another hyphen (-). The domain name cannot start or end with a hyphen (-). If the domain name contains Chinese characters, for example, 阿里云.网址, you must apply for an ICP number for the domain name in Chinese characters and use the Punycode tool to convert the Chinese characters into English letters, such as xn--fiq****.xn--eq****. Then, you can specify the converted domain name as the domain name that you want to accelerate.
      • You cannot add the address of an Alibaba Cloud Application Load Balancer (ALB) instance, such as, example.hangzhou.alb.aliyuncs.com, as the address of an origin server. However, you can configure a CNAME record to resolve a service domain name, such as, origin.example.com, to the address of an ALB instance. For more information, see Configure a CNAME record. Then, set the service domain name to the origin address of the domain name that is accelerated by CDN.
    • Function Compute Domain: Enter a Function Compute domain name that belongs to the current Alibaba Cloud account. You must set the Region and Domain Name parameters for the Function Compute domain name. For more information, see Configure a custom domain name.
    Priority

    You can configure priorities to specify primary and secondary origin servers. The primary origin server has a higher priority than the secondary origin server. CDN preferably redirects requests to the primary origin server. If a fault occurs on the primary origin server, requests are redirected to the secondary origin server. The priority ranges from 0 to 127. A smaller value indicates a higher priority. By default, the priority of the primary origin server is 20, and the priority of the secondary origin server is 30. If you want to set the priority to other values, submit a ticket..

    For example, you have specified two origin servers: Server A and Server B. Server A is the primary origin server and Server B is the secondary origin server. In this case, CDN preferably redirects requests to Server A. If Origin Server A fails, Alibaba Cloud CDN redirects user requests to Origin Server B. After Origin Server A recovers, Alibaba Cloud CDN fails back to Origin Server A.

    Weight
    If origin servers have the same priority, CDN redirects requests to the origin servers based on the weights of the origin servers. This way, loads are balanced among the origin servers. You can specify a weight based on your business requirements.
    • The weight of an origin server ranges from 1 to 100. An origin server that has a higher weight receives more requests.
    • Default value: 10.

    For example, you specify Origin Server A and Origin Server B as primary origin servers. If the weight of Origin Server A is 80 and that of Origin Server B is 20, Alibaba Cloud CDN redirects 80% of requests to Origin Server A and 20% of requests to Origin Server B.

    Port
    The port on the origin server that processes requests.CDN The default port is port 80. You can specify a port based on the settings of your origin server. Valid values are 1 to 65535.
    • Default value: 80.
    • If you specify port 443, requests are redirected to the origin server over HTTPS. If you specify port 80 or a custom port, requests are redirected to the origin server over HTTP.
    Note
    • If you want Alibaba Cloud CDN to redirect HTTPS requests to origin servers over custom ports, see Configure the origin protocol policy.
    • If Origin Protocol Policy is enabled, custom ports do not take effect. By default, Origin Protocol Policy is disabled. For more information about how to disable the origin protocol policy, see Configure the origin protocol policy.
    • If the origin server is an Object Storage Service (OSS) bucket, OSS determines whether you can specify a custom port.
  3. After the configuration is complete, click OK.
  4. Optional:You can repeat the preceding steps to add more origin servers.

Step 3: Complete ownership verification

  1. After you add an origin server, click Next.
  2. Wait for manual verification.
    Note If the domain name does not need to be manually verified, proceed to the next step. In the next step, you can set the parameters based on your business requirements.

    After the domain name passes the verification, the status of the domain name changes to Enabled. In this case, the domain name is added to Alibaba Cloud CDN.

Configure a health check policy for an origin server

Alibaba Cloud CDN POPs provide Layer 4 (TCP) health checks on origin servers. Alibaba Cloud CDN POPs perform health checks on origin servers to check the availability of the origin servers in case back-to-origin routing fails.

If a user sends a Layer 4 connection request to the same origin IP address and port for two consecutive times, and the origin server is unavailable due to reasons such as connection failures or timeouts for both times, Alibaba Cloud CDN moves the IP addressfrom the origin address list to the dead table. Meanwhile, Alibaba Cloud CDN attempts to access origin servers in descending order of priority. If origin servers have the same priority, they are prioritized based on their weights. If an origin IP address remains unavailable for two consecutive times, a scheduled task is started. The task sends TCP probes to the IP address every 5 seconds. The IP address is added to the available origin address list only after a TCP connection to the IP address is established.

Note
  • Probes are sent to IP addresses. If a domain name is specified as the origin address, Alibaba Cloud CDN accesses the secondary origin server only if all the IP addresses that belong to the domain name are unavailable.
  • Probes automatically skip origin servers that are in the dead table.

What to do next

Add a CNAME record for a domain name: After a domain name is added to Alibaba Cloud CDN, Alibaba Cloud CDN assigns a CNAME to the domain name. You must add a CNAME record for the domain name before CDN acceleration can take effect.

Note We recommend that you perform the following operations before you Add a CNAME record for a domain name:

Related API operations

FeatureAPI
Add domain names
Verify domain name ownership