This topic describes how to get started with Alibaba Cloud Content Delivery Network (CDN) to accelerate access to your domain names. To accelerate access to a domain name, you must activate Alibaba Cloud CDN, add the domain name to Alibaba Cloud CDN, and then add a Canonical Name (CNAME) record for the domain name.

Prerequisites

Before you activate Alibaba Cloud CDN, make sure that you have created an Alibaba Cloud account and passed the real-name verification. For more information, see Create an Alibaba Cloud account and Real-name verification.

Step 1: Activate Alibaba Cloud CDN

  1. Log on to the Alibaba Cloud CDN console to activate Alibaba Cloud CDN.
  2. On the Enable Service page, select a billing method. Supported billing method are pay-by-data-transfer and pay-by-bandwidth.
  3. Select I agree with Alibaba Cloud CDN Agreement of Service and click Enable Now.
  4. On the Confirm Order page, click Console to go to the Alibaba Cloud CDN console.

Step 2: Add a domain name to Alibaba Cloud CDN

  1. In the left-side navigation pane, click Domain Names.
  2. On the Domain Names page, click Add Domain Name.
  3. Set the following parameters: Domain Name to Accelerate, Resource Groups, Business Type, Origin Info, Port, and Region.
    Note For more information about these parameters, see Add a domain name for CDN.
  4. Click Next.
    The system prompts that the specified domain name is added.

Step 3: Add a CNAME record for the domain name

After you add a domain name to Alibaba Cloud CDN, Alibaba Cloud CDN verifies the ownership of the domain name. After the domain name passes the ownership verification, Alibaba Cloud CDN assigns a Canonical Name (CNAME) to the domain name. To enable CDN acceleration, you must add a CNAME record to map the accelerated domain name to the CNAME. This way, requests sent to the accelerated domain name can be redirected to the CDN nodes nearest to the clients that make the requests. In this example, a CNAME record is added for an accelerated domain name through Alibaba Cloud Domain Name System (DNS) (previously known as HiChina).

  1. Obtain the CNAME assigned to the accelerated domain name.
    1. In the left-side navigation pane, click Domain Names.
    2. On the Domain Names page, copy the CNAME of the accelerated domain name.
  2. Add a CNAME record.
    1. Log on to the Alibaba Cloud DNS console.
    2. On the Manage DNS page, click the Domains tab, select the domain name that you want to manage, and then click Configure in the Actions column.
    3. Click Add Record and add a CNAME record.
    4. Click OK.

      The CNAME record is added. After the CNAME record takes effect, CDN acceleration is automatically enabled for the domain name. After you add a CNAME record, it immediately takes effect. After you modify a CNAME record, the modifications take effect within 72 hours.

  3. Check whether the CNAME record has taken effect.
    1. Open the Command Prompt in Windows.
    2. Enter ping or dig and the accelerated domain name.
      If the output includes *.*kunlun*.com, the CNAME record has taken effect and CDN acceleration is enabled.

Related topics

For more information about the features of Alibaba Cloud CDN, see Domain management features and Service management features.