This guide contains the steps to use your own domain to route the events or proxy the RudderStack JavaScript SDK via your own CDN.

You will need access to your domain’s DNS settings as well as your CDN settings.
The examples in this guide use AWS CloudFront. However, the settings should be similar regardless of your CDN.

Endpoint details

The following table lists the three endpoints to be proxied via your own CDN to route the events:

EndpointDescription
cdn.rudderlabs.comLoads the JavaScript SDK.
api.rudderlabs.comFetches the source configuration based on your source write key.
<DATA_PLANE_URL>Required for sending the events to RudderStack.

To use your own domain for these endpoints, you will need to route the traffic through your CDN.

You will incur CDN charges for this traffic if you choose to use your own domain.

For each endpoint, you will need to create a CDN distribution and add a CNAME record in your domain for the distribution domain. This guide shows you how to do that.

Setup for serving the SDK

To serve the JavaScript SDK, start by creating a new distribution. The following sections highlight the required distribution settings.

Origin

Custom domains distribution settings
FieldSetting
Origin domaincdn.rudderlabs.com
ProtocolHTTPS Only
HTTPS port443
Minimum origin SSL protocolTLSv1
Namecdn.rudderlabs.com
Enable Origin ShieldNo

Default cache behavior settings

Custom domains distribution settings
FieldSetting
Compress objects automaticallyYes
Viewer protocol policyRedirect HTTP to HTTPS
Allowed HTTP methodsGET, HEAD, OPTIONS, PUT, POST, PATCH, DELETE
Restrict viewer accessNo

Cache key and origin requests

FieldSetting
Cache and origin request settingsCache policy and origin request policy
Cache policyCachingOptimized
Click Create policy and refer to the settings in the Create policy section below.

Additional distribution settings

Custom domains distribution settings
FieldSetting
Price classUse all edge locations(best performance)
Alternate domain name(CNAME)<subdomain.yourdomain.com>
SSL CertificateAdd your custom SSL Certificate. Refer to the Using custom SSL certificates section below for more information.
Supported HTTP versionsHTTP/2
Standard loggingOff
IPv6On

Finally, click Create distribution and wait for CloudFront to be deployed, as shown:

CloudFront deployment

Create cache policy settings

Custom domains create policy settings
FieldSetting
Name<YOUR_CACHE_POLICY_NAME>
Description<CACHE_POLICY_DESCRIPTION>

TTL settings

FieldSetting
Minimum TTL1
Maxmimum TTL31536000
Default TTL86400

Cache key settings

FieldSetting
HeadersInclude the following headers
Add headerSelect Authorization from the dropdown list.
Query stringsNone
CookiesNone

Adding CNAME Record to DNS

Once your distribution is deployed, you will need to create a CNAME record in your domain for the subdomain you wish to use, along with the distribution URL.

NameValue
Subdomain you wish to use (used in the creation of the distribution). This will vary based on your DNS provider but will typically be just the subdomain. For example: for cdn.yourdomain.com you would use cdn.The CDN URL for the created distribution created. Example: d3jlkfchu4u.cloudfront.net
CDN distribution URL

Serving the SDK

Once the setup and DNS propagation is completed, you can change the SDK URL, as shown:

Before:

<script src="https://cdn.rudderlabs.com/v1.1/rudder-analytics.min.js"></script>

After:

<script src="https://subdomain.yourdomain.com/v1.1/rudder-analytics.min.js"></script>

To load a device-mode SDK, you can use the following URL:

<script>
rudderanalytics.load(WRITE_KEY, DATA_PLANE_URL, {
destSDKBaseURL: "https://subdomain.yourdomain.com/v1.1/js-integrations"
});
</script>
If you are using an older version of the JavaScript SDK (v1), refer to the Version Migration Guide to migrate to v1.1.

Setup for sending events

Normally, all the tracked events are sent to RudderStack via your data plane URL. To have events routed through your own domain, you will need to setup a proxy to that and then use your own URL as the data plane URL when initializing the SDK.

Required settings

The settings for sending the events will be the same as the settings for serving the JavaScript SDK, except for the following:

FieldSetting
Origin Domain Name<DATA_PLANE_URL>
Alternate Domain Names (CNAMEs)<subdomain.yourdomain.com>

Adding CNAME record to DNS

The settings for the CNAME record will be the same as the settings for serving the JavaScript SDK. You will need to use the newly created distribution domain and the subdomain you set for it.

Sending events

Once the setup and DNS propagation is completed, you can use the newly created URL as the data plane URL when initializing the SDK, as shown:

Before:

rudderanalytics.load(
<WRITE_KEY> ,
"https://hosted.rudderlabs.com"
)

After:

rudderanalytics.load(
<WRITE_KEY>,
"https://subdomain.yourdomain.com"
)

You should be able to confirm that the events are routed through your own domain and not the rudderstack.com domain in the network tab of your browser console.

Refer to this JavaScript SDK FAQ for more information on verifying the flow of events.

Setup for fetching source configuration

When the JavaScript SDK is loaded, it uses the source write key to fetch the required configuration from RudderStack. This determines which native SDKs may be needed and which destinations are used.

The call to fetch the source configuration is sent to api.rudderstack.com with the source WRITE_KEY used as an authorization header. For this reason, this distribution will be slightly different as you will need to explicitly allowlist the Authorization header to make sure it is sent along with each request.

Required settings

The settings for sending events will be the same as the settings for serving the JavaScript SDK except for the following:

FieldSetting
Origin Domain Nameapi.rudderlabs.com
Alternate Domain Names (CNAMEs)<subdomain.yourdomain.com>

You will also need to allowlist the Authorization header in Cache key settings by following the steps below:

  1. Under Headers, choose Include the following headers from the dropdown.
  2. In the Add header field, select Authorization from the list of options.
Allowlist authorization header

Adding CNAME record to DNS

The settings for the CNAME record will be the same as the settings for serving the JavaScript SDK. You will need to use the newly created distribution domain and the subdomain you set for it.

Fetching the source configuration

To use a custom URL to fetch the source configuration, add it as an option when loading the JavaScript SDK, as shown:

rudderanalytics.load(
<SOURCE_WRITE_KEY>,
"https://hosted.rudderlabs.com",
{
configUrl: "https://subdomain.yourdomain.com",
}
)

Using custom SSL certificates

To use your own domain, you can request or import a SSL certificate with your CDN provider. Note that this is an optional setting.

To use the AWS Certificate Manager with CloudFront, choose the relevant ACM/IAM certificate in the Custom SSL certificate field, as shown:

Custom SSL certificate
You can choose your subdomain or use a wildcard domain *.yourdomain.com to set up multiple subdomains.
The AWS Certificate Manager will guide you through the verification by email or DNS TXT records. You will be able to choose your own domain for SSL certificates once verified.

FAQ

I am using GCP External HTTP(S) Load Balancer to set up my custom domain. However any requests from xyz.mydomain.com to cdn.rudderlabs.com result in a 403. What should I do?

If you're setting up a custom domain using the GCP External HTTPS Load Balancer, make sure you add a custom request header in your backend service config, as shown:

Header nameValue
Hostcdn.rudderlabs.com

I am getting the Access Denied error on using a custom domain URL for JavaScript SDK. What might be the reason?

The Access Denied error is encountered if a custom domain URL accesses the JavaScript SDK's parent folder, as below:

<script src="https://subdomain.yourdomain.com/v1.1/js-integrations"></script>

The correct custom domain URL to access the JavaScript SDK should be in the following format:

<script src="https://subdomain.yourdomain.com/v1.1/rudder-analytics.min.js"></script>

The correct custom domain URL to load a device-mode SDK should be in the following format:

<script>
rudderanalytics.load(WRITE_KEY, DATA_PLANE_URL, {
destSDKBaseURL: "https://subdomain.yourdomain.com/v1.1/js-integrations"
});
</script>

Contact us

For more information on the topics covered on this page, email us or start a conversation in our Slack community.