If you are affiliated with the College of Engineering and either are not eligible/willing to use the CAEN Web Publishing Service or another on-campus service such as Pantheon at U-M, an external hosting service may be your only option.
Note that CAEN does not and cannot support external hosting providers. If you choose to utilize an external provider, you will need to do all support and troubleshooting on your own. CAEN can assist only with creating a *.engin.umich.edu domain name, such as yoursite.engin.umich.edu, if you provide the precise required information to us.
Some steps that are commonly asked for by third-party hosting providers:
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They may require you to "verify ownership" of a domain. If so, they will typically ask for evidence that you control the domain you intend to link with their service. Typically, this involves creating a DNS TXT record as a *.umich.edu record. If this is a requirement, you will need to provide the requested DNS record info in text form (not a screenshot) to ITS via the hostmaster@umich.edu email address.
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Your new hosting provider will require you to update or create a CNAME record in the DNS to redirect traffic to their hosting environment (in some cases they may ask you to create an "A" or "AAAA" record instead). You should include these details in text form (not a screenshot) by email to either hostmaster@umich.edu or caen@umich.edu.
Once DNS records are updated, it may take some time for the changes to take effect across the internet. Upon completion of either or both of the above steps, the hosting provider may require you to press a button or otherwise complete the setup; you will need to work with your hosting provider to complete setup; you are expected to do all troubleshooting with the provider. CAEN will not do this on your behalf, nor will CAEN assist with maintenance/upkeep of your site, nor the transfer of ownership or other permissions-related issues.
If you wish to use a hostname that does not match the pattern something.engin.umich.edu, you must coordinate this with the ITS hostmaster (hostmaster@umich.edu). Note that there are University standards related to domain names in the umich.edu space (SPG 601.15-1) to which you must adhere.