If you are thinking of hosting a blog on GitHub and like to use a custom domain for it then this blog post is for you. I will show you which services I used and which settings have worked for me.

To follow this tutorial you need to have access to:

• The nameservers of your domain.
• The settings page of your GitHub repository

In the following steps, I use the domain jwillmer.de. You need to replace this domain with your own to get it to work.

Domain Hosting Website

Create the following DNS records for your website:

• CNAME named www and value YOUR-GITHUB-USERNAME.github.io
• CNAME named jwillmer.de and value YOUR-GITHUB-USERNAME.github.io
• A named jwillmer.de and value 192.30.252.153
• A named jwillmer.de and value 192.30.252.154

Make sure that the A record IP’s are still the same by visiting the GitHub page.

Cloudflare Domain Setup

The tutorial from Cloudflare: Create a Cloudflare account and add a website

Quick Setup

• Create a free account at Cloudflare
• Add your website to Cloudflare and follow the instructions
• Use the free Cloudflare plan
• After the domain setup you get domainserver names displayed. Copy them and replace your current at the website of your domain registrar

GitHub Setup

Detailed setup instructions from GitHub: Using a custom domain with GitHub Pages

Quick Setup

• Add a file with name CNAME to you root folder of the repository you like to host
• Add your domain with https:// in front as content of the CNAME file: https://jwillmer.de
• Go to the repository settings page and locate the custom domain field. Add jwillmer.de in that field
• If you use the static site generator Jekyll you need to set your domain and subdomain in the _config.yml:
  • Set url to your domain name https://jwillmer.de
  • Optionally force SSL by adding enforce_ssl: jwillmer.de

Cloudflare Modifications

• Go to the Crypto tab of your domain:
  • Set the SSL option to Full
  • Set Automatic SSL Rewrite to On to fix http links (If this is Off you need to use Flexible as SSL option)
• Go to PageRules and create page rules for your website:

Discussion on GitHub

This tutorial was created after a request from Sampath Vanimisetti on Github. He helped me in the process to test this tutorial and improve it - thank you!