How to point a domain at your VPS

You've registered a domain and deployed a VPS. Now you need the two to talk: when someone types your domain, they should land on your server. That connection is made with a single DNS A record, and the whole process takes a few minutes plus a little patience for propagation. Here's the complete walkthrough.

The big picture

Three separate things are involved, and confusing them causes most of the trouble:

• The registrar — where you bought the domain (Namecheap, GoDaddy, Cloudflare…).
• The DNS host — whoever answers DNS queries for the domain. Often the registrar, but not always.
• The VPS — your server, identified by its public IP address.

Pointing a domain means editing DNS records at the DNS host so your domain resolves to the VPS's IP. Which brings us to the first question: where is your DNS actually managed?

Step 1: Find your VPS's public IP

On Nxeon, the IP appears in your dashboard the moment the VPS is ready. From the server itself you can confirm it:

curl -4 ifconfig.me

Note both the IPv4 address and, if provided, the IPv6 address — you'll use them in the records.

Step 2: Find where your DNS is managed

Your domain's name servers (NS records) decide who controls its DNS. If you never changed them, DNS is usually managed at your registrar. If you set the domain up on Cloudflare or a separate DNS provider, that's where you edit records — changing them at the registrar will do nothing. When in doubt, a WHOIS or DNS lookup shows the current name servers.

Step 3: Create the A record

At your DNS host, add an A record pointing the root domain at your VPS IP:

Type: A
Name: @        (this means the root, example.com)
Value: 203.0.113.10     (your VPS IP)
TTL: 3600      (or "Auto")

The @ (or blank name, depending on the provider) represents the bare domain example.com.

Step 4: Handle the www version

You want www.example.com to work too. Two clean options:

• A CNAME on www pointing to the root domain:

Type: CNAME
Name: www
Value: example.com

• Or a second A record on www pointing to the same IP. Either works; the CNAME is tidier because it follows the root automatically if the IP ever changes.

Step 5: Add IPv6 (optional but recommended)

If your VPS has an IPv6 address, add an AAAA record so IPv6 clients connect directly:

Type: AAAA
Name: @
Value: 2001:db8::10

Step 6: Wait for propagation

DNS changes don't take effect instantly. Resolvers around the world cache records for the length of the TTL, so updates can take anywhere from a few minutes to a couple of hours (occasionally longer for name-server changes). A low TTL beforehand makes changes propagate faster. Be patient — a domain that "isn't working" five minutes after the change is almost always just propagating.

Step 7: Verify it worked

Don't guess — check the live records. From the command line:

dig example.com +short
dig www.example.com +short

You want your VPS IP to come back. If it does, DNS is pointing correctly and any remaining site issue is on the server side (web server config, firewall), not DNS.

Step 8: Add SSL

Once the domain resolves to your server, issue HTTPS. With Nginx and Certbot:

sudo certbot --nginx -d example.com -d www.example.com

Certbot verifies domain ownership over the now-working DNS, installs the certificate, and sets up auto-renewal.

Common mistakes

• Editing DNS at the registrar when the domain uses external name servers. Records go where the NS records point.
• Forgetting www. Add the CNAME or a second A record.
• Impatience. Give propagation time before assuming it's broken.
• Wrong IP. Double-check you copied the VPS's public IP, not a private one.
• A stale A record from a previous host still pointing at the old server. Remove it.

Verify your DNS in seconds

After you make the change, confirm it with our free DNS lookup at /tools/dns-lookup. Enter your domain and see its live A, AAAA, CNAME and NS records in a clean table — the fastest way to know whether your record took effect and is pointing at the right IP.

Don't have the server yet? Nxeon deploys an NVMe VPS with a dedicated public IP in about a minute — exactly the IP you'll drop into that A record. See plans at /vps.