Getting Your Own Domain and Email

After finishing boot camp, one of the first things I did was set up my own domain name and email address. I had always thought this was difficult to do, but it turns out it is very straightforward.

Obtaining a Custom Domain Name

Google Domains allows you to search for a name (e.g., example). It then tells you whether that name and various permutations of the name are available, for various endings (e.g., example.org, sample.io), and the cost of each. If you find one that you like, you can license it. I chose a $12 domain and paid upfront for the year.

Setting Up a Custom Email

After purchasing a plan, you will need to set up your Fastmail account and, more importantly, configure the DNS settings on your domain. Fastmail offers a number of guides for configuring common domain registrars… except for Google. So, I had to do a little trial-and-error to figure out how to connect Google Domains and Fastmail.

and to add SPF and DKIM entries, of the following type, selector, and value:

In Google Domains’ DNS settings, that translated to the following:

As soon as you save your DNS settings, the changes should propagate fairly quickly, and you should get a nice, green check in Fastmail telling you that your domain is active. That’s it — you’re good to go!

For more about how to use your domain name once you have it, check out this post about using custom domain names on GitHub Pages.

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