Migrating to Huckabuy Cloud
Huckabuy’s most widely used integration versions are Standard and Enterprise Cloud. Both versions involve an origin change, have different domain requirements and do not grant the customer Cloudflare account access.
Standard integration can be used on both root (example.com) and non-root domains (www.example.com). To use root domains with Standard integration your DNS provider must support ALIAS records at the root. To begin on-boarding, first Huckabuy will fetch the DNS entries that point to your origin for you to confirm, and second provide you with a custom CNAME DNS entry to be made on your registrar, which your registrar will process. After processing is complete and Google Search Console access has been granted to Huckabuy, your site will be live with Cloud.
Enterprise integration can be used on both root (example.com) and non-root domains (www.example.com). A nameserver change to use Cloudflare nameservers is required for non-root domains. The onboarding process begins with Huckabuy providing a list of nameservers to be removed from your registrar, then a list of Cloudflare nameservers will be provided to replace the nameservers removed from your registrar. After the nameservers have been processed and Google Search Console access has been granted, your site will be live on Cloud.
What happens after you make the DNS change?
The first thing that will happen once you make a DNS change is “propagation”. DNS propagation is the time required for DNS servers worldwide to update their cached information for a domain name. Once that happens, the website you are onboarding will now serve through Cloudflare. This is the point where downtime will occur. Once the DNS is propagated, Cloudflare must issue the SSL certificate. This usually takes 10-15 minutes. During this time, users will usually see an error from their browser indicating that the website they are visiting is not secure. Once the SSL certificate is successfully issued, the website will serve normally to users once again.
How long will it take for your site to be fully live after you make the DNS change?
There are two aspects to how long it will take for your site to be fully live after the DNS change. One is DNS propagation (explained above in a bit more detail). This part is less predictable and depends on things like the TTL (time to live) that was set for that record. Higher TTL means the various servers caching that DNS record will cache it for a longer period of time. Registrars typically process DNS changes within 6 hours. After that, it’s a matter of Cloudflare issuing an SSL certificate which takes 10-15 minutes. So it is safe to say you can expect your site to be fully onboarded in 6 hours with only 10-15 minutes of downtime.
What happens once this process is complete?
Once that full process explained above is complete, your website will be live on Huckabuy Cloud. The best way to check up on it’s progress is by refreshing you onboarding page. Once your site is finally live, the onboarding page will give you a success message. At this point, you can verify that your site is serving as normal. If for any reason, you discover a possible issue, you will always have the option to “pause” Huckabuy Cloud. This will shut off Huckabuy Cloud and route requests directly to your origin without having to revert any DNS changes. The pause toggle can be found on the onboarding page or the Huckabuy Cloud page of the Huckabuy Dashboard.