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Domain Setup (Wix + Elastic Beanstalk)

Scenario: subdomain api.yourdomain.com hosted on Elastic Beanstalk with DNS managed by Wix.

Prerequisites​

  • ✅ Elastic Beanstalk environment
  • ✅ EB region defined (ACM certificates must be in the same region as EB)
  • ✅ Domain registered and configured on Wix

Terms​

  • CNAME (Canonical Name): DNS record that points a subdomain to another domain. Example: api.yourdomain.com → my-app.elasticbeanstalk.com
  • ACM (AWS Certificate Manager): AWS service for creating and managing free SSL/TLS certificates
  • SSL/TLS Certificate: Digital certificate that enables secure HTTPS connections
  • DNS Validation: Certificate validation method through DNS records (more common than email validation)

1) Create certificate in AWS Certificate Manager (ACM)​

  1. Access ACM in the same region as your Elastic Beanstalk
  2. Click Request a certificate → Public certificate
  3. Domain name: api.yourdomain.com (or api-dev.yourdomain.com, api-prod.yourdomain.com, etc.)
  4. Validation method: DNS validation (recommended)
  5. Complete and copy the generated validation CNAMEs (host/value)

⚠️ Why do this first? These CNAMEs will be created in DNS (Wix) to validate the certificate before attaching it to Elastic Beanstalk.

2) Configure DNS in Wix​

Access Domains → Manage DNS in the Wix panel and add:

2.1) ACM validation CNAME(s)​

  • Type: CNAME
  • Host: as shown in ACM (long/unique name generated by AWS) - remove trailing dot (.) if present
  • Points to: the validation CNAME value provided by ACM - remove trailing dot (.) if present
  • Save and wait for validation (typically 3-10 minutes)

⚠️ Important: AWS generates values with trailing dots (.), but Wix doesn't accept them. Remove the trailing dot from both Host and Value before saving.

2.2) Application CNAME​

  • Type: CNAME
  • Host: api (or any desired subdomain: api-dev, api-prod, etc.)
  • Points to: Elastic Beanstalk endpoint
    Example: my-app-env.eba-xyz123.eu-west-1.elasticbeanstalk.com

3) Attach certificate in Elastic Beanstalk​

  1. In Elastic Beanstalk → your environment → Configuration → Network

  2. Add HTTPS listener:

    • Port: 443
    • Protocol: HTTPS
    • SSL certificate: select the validated ACM certificate
    • SSL policy: the latest one, example: ELBSecurityPolicy-TLS13-1-2-2021-06

  3. Configure HTTP → HTTPS redirect (optional but recommended):

    • Edit the port 80 (HTTP) listener
    • Configure a Redirect rule to HTTPS:443
    • This forces all connections to use HTTPS

  4. Apply configurations and wait for deployment (may take a few minutes)

4) Django application adjustments​

# settings.py
ALLOWED_HOSTS = [
    "api.yourdomain.com",  # or your chosen subdomain
]

Deploy: After changes, deploy the application to Elastic Beanstalk.

5) Testing and verification​

5.1) Verify DNS​

dig api.yourdomain.com

Expected result:

api.yourdomain.com.  300  IN  CNAME  my-app-env.eba-xyz123.eu-west-1.elasticbeanstalk.com.

5.2) Verify HTTPS/TLS​

curl -I https://api.yourdomain.com

Expected result:

HTTP/2 200
server: nginx/1.20.1
date: Fri, 05 Sep 2025 10:30:00 GMT
content-type: text/html; charset=utf-8

5.3) Test in browser​

  1. Verify that the certificate is valid - status Issued
  2. Access https://api.yourdomain.com in the browser

Workflow summary​

  1. ACM: Create certificate with DNS validation
  2. Wix DNS: Add validation CNAMEs + application CNAME
  3. Elastic Beanstalk: Attach certificate and configure HTTPS listeners
  4. Django: Adjust ALLOWED_HOSTS and proxy configurations
  5. Test: Verify DNS, HTTPS, and complete functionality