Welcome to SecureCDN - Quick Start Guide – StackPath Support

So, you went with StackPath, huh? Good choice! In this quick start guide, we'll walk you through all the necessary steps to set up your content on SecureCDN.

Lessons in this quick start guide:

Create a Site
Configure a CNAME or ANAME in your DNS manager
Upload SSL certificates
Enable WAF and DDoS
Verify whether CORS is enabled (if you need it)
Redirect HTTP traffic to HTTPS
Continue Learning

What Is StackPath SecureCDN?

StackPath SecureCDN is the fastest, most secure way to deliver your content to audiences on a global scale. With built-in features like WAF and DDoS protection, SecureCDN provides the tools your business needs to develop and deliver the best content on the web reliably and securely every time.

To give you the most out of SecureCDN, we made this quick start guide. We'll cover things like how to create your first Site, configuring a CNAME in your DNS manager, uploading SSL certificates, and configuring WAF and DDoS settings.

Create a Site

To start using SecureCDN, you'll need to create a Site.

Once you've logged into your account, from the Summary page, click Create New Site.

You've got two options for creating a new Site: Entire Website or Assets Only. Which option you choose will be shaped by your needs and requirements.

You should choose Entire Website if:

You are mostly concerned with security—WAF requires full-site integration
You want to serve all of your website's traffic through the CDN
You have a simple website with content that isn't frequently updated and do NOT require WAF (you can choose to enable or disable WAF)
You have the ability to manage your DNS settings

You should choose Assets Only if:

You already use a caching plugin—such as W3TC—and want to keep using it
You are concerned more with the performance of your content than the security
You are not comfortable managing your DNS settings
You want to control which files are served over the CDN and which are not
You have a website with some logging in/out functionality—WordPress, for example—or an e-commerce website, and aren't looking to add WAF on top of it

Create a Site Using Entire Website

To run your entire website through SecureCDN, select Entire Website.

Enter your domain with a subdomain and click Next. For this example, I chose www.stackpath-demo.com.

Give your Site a name. This will be appended to the start of the Site's CDN URL. Your Site's CDN URL is also what you'll use as your CNAME or ANAME target. We'll get to that in the next step. For now, choose something obvious. My account automatically chose "wwwstackpath-democom" as my Site's name.

Custom Host Header, Origin Protocol, and Web Server IP Address or Domain Name are auto-populated. If they're blank or don't look right, you can update those fields as necessary.

Finally, you can choose to have your Site created with WAF enabled, or you can choose to enable WAF later.

Create a Site Using Assets Only

To run you select assets only through SecureCDN, select Assets Only.

Start by giving the name a Site. I chose "stackpathdemo2" as mine.

Next, paste the complete directory path to your data on your origin server in the Origin Server URL field. This will either be a web address or an IP address including "http://..."

Now, you may choose to give the Site a descriptive label if you choose in the Label field.

When you're finished, click Create Site.

You'll automatically be brought to the Settings and Site Details page for the Site you just created. Locate your Site's CDN URL and copy it. If you're using a plugin like W3 Total Cache, you'll want to go to the settings section of the W3 Total Cache plugin and paste the CDN URL into the required field. Once you've done that, save all changes.

For more on creating Sites, visit our Sites support articles:

Configure a CNAME or ANAME in Your DNS Manager

If you chose Entire Website, you'll need to manage the DNS records for your website's domain. Here's how it's done quick and easy.

Once you've logged into your SecureCDN account, navigate to the Site you'd like to view by clicking Manage.

On the Settings page, under Site Details, you'll see your Site's CDN URL. This is the CNAME target you will use to configure your DNS records. Select the CDN URL and copy.

Creating a CNAME record is more or less the same no matter who your DNS provider is. You'll log in to your domain's control panel, navigate to DNS management, select the domain you'd like to manage, create a CNAME record, paste in the CDN URL from your SecureCDN account as the CNAME target, and save the changes.

If you need step-by-step instructions, check out our guide detailing the specific steps to set up a CNAME record or steps to set up an ANAME record with some of the most common DNS providers.

Upload SSL Certificates

Now it's time to secure your content's traffic.

Once you've logged into your SecreuCDN account, navigate to the Site you'd like to edit by clicking Manage.

Now navigate to the SSL certificates page by clicking SSL.

Once there, click Upload a new certificate to your account.

Now you'll need to paste the contents of your cert, key, and CA bundle to the text fields provided. You can open your cert files with any text editor, copy the contents, and paste it to the appropriate fields.

Click Upload.

You don't have to name your cert because once it is uploaded, SecureCDN will automatically name it by default with the domain name, vendor, and the expiration date for quick reference.

Additionally, if you've already uploaded a certificate to another Site, you can choose that cert by clicking Choose an uploaded certificate.

For more on SSL certificates, check out this article on SSL Options Explained.

Enable WAF and DDoS

Now it's time to protect your content and servers. When you create a new Site, you're given the option to automatically enable WAF. If you chose to enable WAF later, that's what we'll walk you through now.

Once you've logged into your SecreuCDN account, navigate to the Site you'd like to edit by clicking Manage.

Click WAF in the left navigation panel, and then click Settings.

To enable WAF, click the WAF Status drop-down menu and select WAF is Enabled.

Click Update.

Additionally, if you'd like to cache certain files by extension to be ignored by WAF, you can add those extensions to the Cache the Following Static Content Aggressively field.

For more on WAF, check out this article on WAF Action Priorities.

Verify Whether CORS is Enabled

If you need CORS (cross-origin resource sharing), make sure that CORS is enabled on your Site.

CORS allows restricted resources on a website to be requested from another outside domain.

Once you've logged into your SecreuCDN account, navigate to the Site you'd like to edit by clicking Manage.

Scroll down to the Edge Settings section and click the checkbox next to Add CORS Headers to allow cross-origin resource sharing.

For more on CORS, check out this article on How to Enable CORS Headers.

Redirect HTTP Traffic to HTTPS

Now it's time to make sure your website's visitors have a safe experience with your content.

If you've already uploaded your SSL certificate, you can automatically redirect visitors to the secured (HTTPS) version of your website to make sure their information is protected.

Once you've logged into your SecreuCDN account, navigate to the Site you'd like to edit by clicking Manage.

Click EdgeRules in the left navigation panel.

From here you can add a new rule to force connections to HTTPS. Click Add New Rule, click the Select a recipe drop-down, and select Force HTTPS Connections.

By default, the options selected on the Create EdgeRule page are configured to redirect all HTTP traffic to HTTPS. if you're done customizing these options, click Create.

When you successfully create a new EdgeRule, you'll see a notification that your zone (Site) is being reloaded in real-time to the edge servers.

Continue Learning

Want to learn more about how to use SecureCDN? We recommend checking out the support portal for tutorials and walkthroughs and the blog for tips, tricks, and news.

Here are some of our favorite posts:

EdgeRules Recipe: Block Access to WP-Admin

Creating an API ID/Key Pair

Enabling Gzip Compression: StackPath CDN

What is Content Caching?

What is DDoS?

What is Cache Hit Ratio?