Introduction
In this article, we’ll take a look at the things you’ll want to have in place when you’re launching a new website on vCanopy.
In a nutshell, you’re going to want an SSL certificate, transactional email (for contact form submissions, etc), your security setup, caching, and your DNS records in place.
The order in which you do these will depend on whether you’re using a DNS API integration with either Cloudflare or DNS Made Easy (DNSME).
If you’d like to skip ahead, these are the main sections of this article:
To-Do’s for Every Website
TRANSACTIONAL EMAIL
Before you set your website live, you need to ensure that it’s properly configured to send email. This ensures that contact forms will function correctly, and you’ll receive any necessary notifications from WordPress and any plugins that send alerts/updates.
We integrate with Sendgrid, but you can setup SMTP using a plugin such as WP Mail SMTP and hook your website up to a variety of other providers such as Sendinblue, Amazon SES, Mailgun and more.
SECURITY
It’s a good idea to create your own security plan that you can follow, and also help your clients implement.
You can learn what vCanopy secures by default here along with further recommendations:
Default vCanopy Security and Additional Options
We recommend you:
- Put the website on its own system user
- Implement strong passwords, and appropriate usernames (“admin” is not appropriate)
- Grant users the correct permissions to do what they need to do, and limit access
- Use well-supported plugins with a good clean history and reputation
- Use two-factor authentication
- Activate one of our Web Application Firewalls
- Use a security plugin such as Sucuri, iThemes or Wordfence (deactivate the WAF if using a vCanopy WAF integration) if you’re not sure on what you should do to secure your website. There’s a lot of debate around whether you really need a security plugin – I’d err on the side of caution.
- Provision an SSL – more details below
IMPLEMENT CACHING
We highly recommend our server-side caching options. We offer Redis Nginx Page Caching or FastCGI page caching, and also Redis Object caching.
You can choose one of the two page caching options and combine it with Redis Object caching for exceptional performance. Please check out this article for an introduction on exactly what our server caching options are and what they do:
An Introduction to vCanopy Server Caching Options
If you’re not using our server-side caching then make sure you toggle off caching inside your websites’ configuration modal. Our caching will not work well with other regular caching plugins, and in fact, may break your website’s appearance on the front end. You can also turn off Redis object caching by deactivating the plugin inside your website.
PROVISION A SSL CERTIFICATE
This almost goes without saying, but since it’s a checklist we’ll say it: You should provision an SSL certificate. You can do this a couple of ways – either by using the webroot domain verification method (requires setting DNS records and letting them propagate worldwide before you can provision):
Provisioning an SSL for a domain using Webroot Domain Verification
Or you can use the API method. This allows you to provision an SSL before changing your DNS records. Learn more here:
Provisioning an SSL for a domain using DNS API Domain verification
Don’t toggle on AutoSSL unless you need it. Learn more here:
Using vCanopy AutoSSL
SET YOUR DNS RECORDS
DNS records are pretty straight forward once you know what you’re doing. If you’re new to managing your own DNS, please check out our article on it here:
Setting DNS Records
You can also manage your DNS records directly inside your vCanopy control panel if you’re using either our DNS Made Easy or Cloudflare API integration.
We recommend setting your DNS live after you’ve checked all the above boxes and ideally provisioned your SSL. Note that with some DNS providers it can take a few hours, sometimes even longer for DNS records to propagate worldwide. You can keep an eye on yours with this website:
DNS Checker – DNS Check Propagation Tool
If you’re using the webroot method for provisioning an SSL, toggle SSL on once IP address is live everywhere worldwide.
New Brochure Website Checklist
- Ensure transactional email is working correctly
- Setup security for your website
- Implement caching
- Provision an SSL certificate
- Set your A and CNAME records at your DNS provide
Ecommerce Store Considerations
SERVER CONSIDERATIONS
Ideally, your Ecommerce store will live on its own server, with no other websites. If it’s small in size and traffic, you may be fine with a 1CPU 2GB RAM VPS.
MYSQL RAM ALLOCATION
Ecommerce can be heavy on resources. You’ll want to take advantage of Redis Object caching to reduce the workload off MySQL, and you may want to monitor MySQL usage and increase it’s RAM allocation if required. You can learn how to do this here:
Adjusting MySQL Monit Memory
CACHE EXCLUSIONS
If you’re using our server caching and your store is not in English OR if you have custom URLs, you will also need to exclude the shopping cart and checkout pages from the cache. By default we exclude the following:
- examplestore.com/my-account/
- examplestore.com/cart/
- examplestore.com/checkout/
These pages won’t function correctly if the server or a caching plugin is serving up a pre-stored copy.
You can learn how to exclude specific pages from your website’s cache here:
Exclude a page from server caching
New Ecommerce Store Checklist
- Ensure email is sending from your website correctly
- Setup security for your website
- Implement caching, including Redis Object caching
- Ensure shopping cart and checkout pages are excluded from the cache
- Provision an SSL certificate
- Set your A and CNAME records at your DNS provide
WaaS Network / WP Ultimo Considerations
MYSQL RAM ALLOCATION
Like Woocommerce stores, Ultimo stores are also heavy on MySQL usage. Issues usually arise when the server is simply too small for the website. For best performance, your entire database should be stored in RAM and your server needs to be large enough to accommodate this.
You’ll want to take advantage of Redis Object caching to reduce the workload off MySQL, and you will want to monitor MySQL usage and increase it’s RAM allocation as required. You can learn how to do this here:
Adjusting MySQL Monit Memory
CUSTOM SIGN-UP URL CACHE EXCLUSION
By default, any URL that ends with “.php” is excluded from the cache. WP Ultimo gives you the option to set a custom sign-up URL. Learn how to exclude this here:
Exclude a Custom WP-Ultimo Sign-Up URL from the Cache
WILDCARD SSL AND AUTOSSL
vCanopy has an awesome integration with WP Ultimo. If you add a subsite to your network with an alias domain, it will automatically be added to your websites domain tab inside of vCanopy, and automatically try to provision an SSL certificate for that domain. Learn more here:
Using vCanopy AutoSSL
Provisioning a Wildcard SSL for a domain using DNS API Domain verification
BACKUP SCHEDULE
By default vCanopy local backups take place every hour on the hour. Depending on the size of your WaaS network this may put a strain on your server’s resources resulting in table locking and poor performance. You may wish to adjust your schedule to just once or twice per day, during the quietest hours.
You can learn how to adjust your back up schedule here:
vCanopy Local Remote Backups
And you may wish to check out this article for further information on performance:
Why is my WaaS network slow – Table locking and MySQL RAM allocation
TRANSACTIONAL EMAIL
The default SendGrid integration doesn’t allow for customizing the “From” email for subsites. You’ll want to look for a solution that works with your chosen SMTP provider and allows the from address to be customized.
WaaS Network / WP Ultimo Checklist
- Ensure transactional email is working correctly for the main site and subsites
- Setup security for your website
- Implement caching, including Redis Object caching
- Ensure sign-up URL is excluded from the cache
- Provision a Wildcard SSL certificate
- Set up AutoSSL
- Set your A and CNAME records at your DNS provide
- Adjust your local backup schedule to be less resource-intensive
- Contact support to have us run our integration commands