How to use Wordpress on Handshake
Kinsta enables you to point your Handshake name to their nameservers and build Wordpress sites!
Step 1: Add your domain
After singing up for Kinsta’s Starter Plan, navigate to Kinsta DNS
Click Add Domain
Add the second-level domain you would like to create a Wordpress site on.
Note: The “Add Gmail MX records” will do nothing here because Google does not yet recognize Handshake names.
Do not check the box.
Step 2: Add Site
After adding your domain, navigate to sites
Click "Add Site”
Fill out each field, including where you want your data center and your username and password for the Wordpress site (excluded from screenshot)
Add Site
Step 3: Add DNS
Once your site has been created, navigate to Kinsta DNS
Click Manage next to your domain
Click in the IPv4 box to automatically populate the IP address
Check the box to add DNS record with and without www
Add DNS record
Step 4: Point Nameservers to Kinsta
Open the Domain Manager of your TLD on Namebase
Remove the existing NS record in the Blockchain DNS section
Create new NS records in the Blockchain DNS section that correspond to the nameservers on Kinsta
Click save and be aware that it may take a moment for the records to be added, so be patient.
Once they’re added, your domain may show that it’s “syncing”.
This can take up to 72 hrs before your name will resolve.
The name of each NS record on Namebase can be anything you want and the value should be the IP address on Kinsta.
Make sure there are no spaces before or after either name.
See screenshot for reference and click on it to view in lightbox.
Success!
This page resolved within an hour of adding the nameservers; results may vary.
Accessing your Wordpress site
To access your Wordpress site you will need to be running NextDNS or otherwise able to resolve Handshake names. Using this install as an example, the admin page would be rnd.dfy/wp-admin
Since there is no SSL, it is best you not use passwords you use for other platforms to login (nor should you even when there is SSL) and commerce or any other collection of sensitive information should not be conducted on these sites.
Max number of installs on a TLD
Per the Handshake Resource Guide “each Handshake name stores a single Resource with the maximum size of 512 bytes”.
So, you cannot host an unlimited amount of names this way, but I have had success running 4 concurrent Wordpress installs on a single TLD, meaning there are 16 NS records stored in the Blockchain DNS section for that TLD.
The process will be much more convenient once SLDs are being registered through a registrar.
Emojis, numbers, and bare TLDs
Emoji TLDs are supported here but hosting bare TLDs and purely numeric TLDs currently are not. I’ve raised this issue with Kinsta and their development team is looking into it.
You submitting additional inquiries and requests for these features would go a long way to speed that development up.
Affiliate Disclosure
The links here for Kinsta’s Starter Plan (defaults to Business plan; click “change") are affiliate links.
Namesake Domains will receive $50 for each Starter Plan sign up (more for higher plans) and 10% of the monthly fee, at no additional cost to you. If you’ve found this article helpful and decide to put Wordpress on your Handshake domains, enabling cookies on your browser and signing up through our affiliate link will go a long way to support our continued research, development, and promotion of Handshake!
