How to Point a Domain to Your VPS

After ordering a VPS, one of the most common tasks is pointing your domain name to the server IP so visitors can open your site. This guide explains how to configure DNS at your registrar and prepare the web server on your Hiddence VPS.

What you need

• A registered domain (at any registrar)
• Your VPS public IP address from the Hiddence client area
• Access to DNS management at your registrar
• Nginx or Apache installed on the server (for the website itself)

Step 1: Create an A record

Log in to your domain registrar panel and open DNS settings. Add an A record that points your root domain to the VPS IP:

Type: A
Host / Name: @  (or leave empty for root domain)
Value / Points to: YOUR_VPS_IP
TTL: 300–3600 (auto is fine)

Step 2: Configure www subdomain

You can either add another A record for www or use a CNAME pointing to the root domain:

Option A — A record:
Type: A
Host: www
Value: YOUR_VPS_IP

Option B — CNAME:
Type: CNAME
Host: www
Value: yourdomain.com

Step 3: Verify DNS propagation

DNS changes can take from a few minutes up to 48 hours. Check whether the domain resolves to your server:

dig yourdomain.com +short
dig www.yourdomain.com +short

# Or use nslookup:
nslookup yourdomain.com

Step 4: Create Nginx server block

When DNS points to your VPS, configure Nginx to accept requests for your domain:

sudo nano /etc/nginx/sites-available/yourdomain.com

server {
    listen 80;
    server_name yourdomain.com www.yourdomain.com;
    root /var/www/yourdomain.com;
    index index.html index.php;
}

sudo ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/yourdomain.com /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/
sudo nginx -t && sudo systemctl reload nginx

Useful tips

• Use Cloudflare or another DNS only if you understand proxy/CDN settings
• After DNS works, install SSL with Let's Encrypt (Certbot)
• Lower TTL before migration to speed up DNS updates
• Keep a backup of old DNS records before changing them
• Use separate A records for mail if you run an email server