Setting up subdomains

A subdomain is a child of your main domain — blog.yourdomain.com, shop.yourdomain.com, staging.yourdomain.com. Each can serve different content from a different folder on your hosting account.

Create a subdomain

1. Go to Services → click your hosting service → Subdomains tile.
2. Click Create subdomain.
3. Enter:
   • Subdomain — the prefix (blog, shop, staging).
   • Domain — pick from your domains on this hosting account.
   • Document root — where to serve files from. Default is public_html/<subdomain>, you can override.
4. Save.

The subdomain is active within minutes. We:

• Add the DNS record automatically (if you're using our nameservers).
• Configure the web server to serve the subdomain from the document root.
• Auto-issue an SSL certificate so https://subdomain.yourdomain.com works.

Where to put the files

Your subdomain serves whatever's in its document root. Default location is /public_html/<subdomain>/, but you can pick anything.

To upload files: open the File Manager tile, navigate to the document root, drop files in. Or use FTP/SFTP — same destination.

Common uses

• blog.yourdomain.com — a separate WordPress install for blog content.
• shop.yourdomain.com — an e-commerce site or store.
• staging.yourdomain.com — a copy of your main site for testing changes before going live.
• api.yourdomain.com — a backend API endpoint.
• docs.yourdomain.com — documentation hosted via a static site generator.

Subdomains and SSL

We auto-issue Let's Encrypt SSL for any subdomain you create through the portal. Within 5 minutes, https://your-subdomain.yourdomain.com works.

If you want a wildcard certificate that covers all subdomains at once (*.yourdomain.com), that's a different setup — see SSL certificates.

Subdomains pointing elsewhere

If you want a subdomain to point at a service you're hosting outside of Flashcloud (a Shopify store, a Heroku app, a third-party API), you don't need a subdomain at the hosting level — you just need a DNS record.

1. Go to Domains → click the domain → DNS subpage.
2. Add a CNAME (or A) record pointing the subdomain at the external service.

For example, to point shop.yourdomain.com at a Shopify store: CNAME → shopify.com. Shopify will then serve content for that subdomain.

Removing a subdomain

Same tile in reverse: click Remove on the subdomain. We:

• Drop the DNS record.
• Remove the web server vhost.
• Don't delete files — those stay in the document root unless you remove them separately.

Limits

How many subdomains you can have depends on your plan. Most plans allow unlimited subdomains. The exact limit (if any) is on your plan's spec sheet.