Getting 'Not Found' on custom subdomain on Netlify site. Using Route53 with Netlify and subdomain hosted on Heroku

Question

My api.<base-url> subdomain is not configured correctly. I purchased a domain through AWS and hooked it up to my static website running on Netlify. To do this, I set up Route53 to use Netlify's Name Servers. This works fine for the apex domain and https://<base-url> sends me to the static site.

Image of the Route53 hosted zone for this domain

I also have a node instance running on Heroku which I want to be hosted at api.<base-url>. Currently it is accessible by the heroku provided url (<project-name>.herokuapp.com)

I added a custom domain to Heroku for the api subdomain of my Netlify site api.<base-url>, the result of my heroku domains command is:

➜ heroku domains
=== <project-name> Heroku Domain
<project-name>.herokuapp.com

=== <project-name> Custom Domains
Domain Name   DNS Record Type DNS Target                                          
api.<base-url> CNAME           fitted-lemon-gzwby8exkguturnmh2emy5l4.herokudns.com

And I created a CNAME record on Route53 that points to this Heroku DNS target.

This sort of works, running host api.<base-url> gives:

➜ host api.<base-url>
api.<base-url> has address 104.248.60.43
api.<base-url> is an alias for <project-name>.herokuapp.com.
api.<base-url> is an alias for <project-name>.herokuapp.com.

So it is aliased to my heroku app, but when I go to api.<base-url> directly I get a white page that says 'Not Found', looks like this is on Netlify's side not Heroku? But I'm not sure. I feel like I need to tell Netlify somehow that there is a custom subdomain at api.<base-url> but the only thing I can find in the docs is setting up Netlify's subdomains from other branches of the project, not when a subdomain is hosted elsewhere.

Setting api<base-url> as a Netlify custom domain just ended up routing all the traffic for api.<base-url> to the static netlify site at <base-url> instead of my Heroku app.

I made a few other attempts but nothing has worked so far, I am officially stuck on this. Thank you in advance!

Were you able to get HTTPS working on both the client side (Netlify) and server side (Heroku)? I'm having trouble there, but I think it's HSTS-related. When I visit api.<base-url>, I get SSL_ERROR_INTERNAL_ERROR_ALERT. — Paul Shryock

DavidH DavidH · Accepted Answer · 2020-01-12T18:29:43

Found it! Figures that it would click 30 minutes after posting.

I had a CNAME on Route53 but this was useless since I was using the Netlify DNS. You'll need to create a CNAME on Netlify that points to the host Heroku gives you.

So my heroku domains gave me the host I needed the CNAME to point to. I created a CNAME record on Netlify - which was not very obvious, I had to click into the badge 'Netlify DNS' in order to find the config.

I was able to create the right CNAME and then have it all work after that.

Getting 'Not Found' on custom subdomain on Netlify site. Using Route53 with Netlify and subdomain hosted on Heroku

1 Answers