Using a CNAME with Shared Windows Azure Website

Question

I've been following instructions on the Azure site to add a CNAME to point to my Azure website. I have had some problems getting it to work and there seems to be some contradictory information in some of the posts.

I have my website running in "Shared" mode, which according to the Azure instructions supports custom domains and indeed it seems to allow me to manage domains. But some posts seem to indicate that I have to run in reserved mode. Can anyone confirm this?

Also, some posts seem to indicate that I need to add the CNAME in the Azure management portal, but I cannot find where this is. Any help appreciated?

I don't really understand A records and CNAME that well. My DNS provider allows me to add both. Do I need to change both? Currently my A record points the "root" to the IP address that Azure gives me and the CNAME points www.mydomain to the Azure website host mysite.azurewebsites.net. I have left them for a while to propogate and nothing seem to happen.

Answer 1

The notion of FREE, SHARED, RESERVED website categories are very recent; Microsoft Launched it just 2 days ago. Earlier it used to be either FREE or RESERVED. You get to attach a custom domain name only for reserved instance.

With the new feature of low cost shared option, you get to attach a custom domain but it will still be in the shared pool of Azure Websites. It works out around $9.36 a month.

The reason for contradiction info in the posts are due to new to features. In short you can use both SHARED and RESERVED for attaching custom domain. With shared it is little cheaper provided you are fine with your website being served for shared pool.

Just go the SCALE Table and make your website instance SHARED from default free and then go to Configure table to put your CNAME