Custom Domains

Connect a subdomain of your own domain — like www.yourdomain.com or viewer.yourdomain.com — to a Needle Cloud deployment. Visitors then reach your 3D app on your own address, with a TLS certificate issued and renewed automatically. No server setup, no certificate management. (Root domains like yourdomain.com are supported too, via a redirect — see Root / apex domains.)

How it works (in one minute)

A deployment is normally served at your-project.needle.run. Connecting a custom domain adds a second address that points at the same deployment. You prove you own the domain and point it at us by adding a couple of DNS records at your provider; we then issue the HTTPS certificate and start serving your domain.

Connect a domain

1. Open your deployment in Needle Cloud and find the Custom domains section.
2. Enter a subdomain (e.g. www.yourdomain.com) and click Connect.
   (For a root domain like yourdomain.com, see Root / apex domains.)
3. The domain appears as Validating… with a short list of DNS records to add.
4. Add those records at your DNS provider (see below), then click Verify.
5. Once your records are in place and verified, the status turns Active — your domain is live with HTTPS. ✅

Adding the DNS records

You add the records wherever you manage your domain's DNS (your registrar or DNS provider — e.g. Cloudflare, GoDaddy, Namecheap, IONOS, Squarespace). DNS changes can take a few minutes to a couple of hours to take effect (propagation).

The routing record — a CNAME on a subdomain

Connect a subdomain — www.yourdomain.com, viewer.yourdomain.com, app.yourdomain.com — and add the CNAME record shown in the connect dialog. That's the routing done; the subdomain now points at your deployment.

The verification records

Alongside the routing record, the connect dialog shows two more records that let us issue and auto-renew your certificate:

• a TXT record at _cf-custom-hostname.… — proves you control the domain.
• a CNAME record at _acme-challenge.… → …dcv.cloudflare.com — delegates certificate validation to us, so renewals happen automatically and you never have to touch this again.

Add every record exactly as shown — use the copy button next to each value to avoid typos.

Root / apex domains

A root (or apex) domain is the bare domain with no subdomain — yourdomain.com. By a DNS rule, a root domain can't be a CNAME, so it can't be pointed at Needle Cloud directly. Use your root domain in two steps:

1. Connect a subdomain — usually www.yourdomain.com — exactly as above (CNAME + verification records → Active). This serves your app. (In the connect dialog, if you type a root domain we'll offer a one-click "Use www.…" to do this for you.)
2. Redirect the root to the subdomain. At your registrar / DNS provider, set up a 301 (permanent) redirect so yourdomain.com → https://www.yourdomain.com/, and enable HTTPS on the forward — often labeled "SSL" (or "Let's Encrypt") — so https://yourdomain.com doesn't show a certificate warning. Most providers offer this under "URL forwarding" / "redirect" — e.g. all-inkl "Weiterleitung", Porkbun / Namecheap "URL forwarding", Cloudflare "Redirect Rules". Choose permanent (301), not temporary — it's the SEO-correct choice.

Now visitors typing yourdomain.com are sent to www.yourdomain.com, which serves your app. This is standard practice — much of the web canonicalises to www.

Email is unaffected

Connecting a custom domain only changes where web traffic for that name goes. Your email (the MX records) keeps working as before — connecting a domain to Needle Cloud does not touch it.

Troubleshooting

Stuck on "Validating…"? Let us check for you

When a domain isn't verifying, click Verify — we run a live DNS check and tell you, per record, exactly what's wrong: not found yet, the wrong value, blocked by a wildcard, or entered with your domain accidentally doubled (see below). You usually don't have to debug DNS by hand.

Don't include your domain in the record name

Many DNS providers add your domain automatically to whatever you type in a record's name field. If you paste the full name shown (e.g. _acme-challenge.yourdomain.com), it can end up doubled — _acme-challenge.yourdomain.com.yourdomain.com — and we'll never find it. Enter only the label (the part before your domain, e.g. _acme-challenge); the provider appends the rest. If you're unsure, add it and click Verify — we'll tell you if it landed at the wrong name.

Cloudflare: use "DNS only" (grey cloud)

If your domain is on Cloudflare, set the routing record to DNS only (grey cloud), not Proxied (orange cloud). A proxied record conflicts with the connection.

A wildcard / catch-all is hiding your records

Some DNS providers point every subdomain at their web server by default (a wildcard / catch-all). Because a DNS name can't be both a CNAME and a TXT record at the same time, that wildcard can shadow the _acme-challenge / _cf-custom-hostname records — so we never see them and validation gets stuck.

If your domain is stuck on Validating…, check for a wildcard / catch-all at your DNS provider and make sure the verification records are added as explicit records that override it.

Propagation takes time

DNS records aren't instant. If Verify says it's not validated yet, wait a few minutes and try again.

Enter the bare hostname, not a URL

Type just the hostname (www.yourdomain.com) — no http://, no trailing slash, no path.

What's next

• Needle Cloud — manage your deployments, versions, and custom domains.
• Deploy from Unity or Blender — build a 3D web app and publish it to Needle Cloud in a few clicks.