You've created a secure certificate and applied it to an edge hostname for access by requesting clients. You have your origin server configured using NetStorage and your website uploaded. And, you've set up an Ion property to streamline delivery of your website.

You're ready to test all of this and then go live with your website on the ​Akamai​ edge network.

Get your ID values

You need the unique alphanumeric value assigned to your contract and primary group, prefaced by their PAPI prefixes—ctr_<value> and grp_<value>, respectively. If you don't have these values, you can use the Property Manager API (PAPI) to get these values.

You also need the unique propertyId that ​Akamai​ assigned to your Ion property, prefaced with its PAPI prefix—prp_<value>. If you didn't store this value, you can run an operation in PAPI to get it.

Finally, you need the edge hostnames you created and added to your Ion property. If you don't have these stored, you can run the List edge hostnames operation to get them.

Test your setup

While it's not required, you should thoroughly test your website or app.

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1. Activate your property on staging

To start, activate your Ion property on the staging network.

In your activation, you should've set "fastPush": true to enable ​Akamai​'s Fast Activation feature. So, your property should be ready in as little as three minutes. The notifyEmails addresses you set will get a message when the property is active on staging.

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2. Point your browser to edge servers

Temporarily set up your local browser to target an edge server to access your property.

1. You need your hostname's actual IP address. You can get it by appending-staging to your stored edge hostname, and running a command from a Terminal or Command Prompt: For example, the appended hostname might look like this:

   docsassociates.com.edgesuite-staging.net
   

   O/S	Detail
   Linux/macOS	Open a new terminal, and perform a "dig" of your edge hostname: IPv4-only dig www.docsassociates.com.edgesuite-staging.net IPv4 + IPv6 dual stack dig AAAA www.docsassociates.com.edgesuite-staging.net
   Windows	Open a new command prompt, and perform an "nslookup" of your edge hostname. IPv4-only / IPv4 + IPv6 dual stack nslookup www.docsassociates.com.edgesuite-staging.net

2. Open your local hosts file in a text editor. Based on your operating system, you may be able to find your host file as follows:

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The above paths are only examples of where this file might be found. Please see the relevant user documentation for the location of the Hosts file for your selected operating system.

3. At the end of the hosts file, add an entry for the actual domain to your website that includes the edge hostname's IP address.

   1.23.45.78 docsassociates.com
   

4. Save and close your hosts file. All requests from your local system to your domain will now go to an edge server.

   • This applies to your local system, only.
   • To undo the redirection to the edge server, remove the new entry from your hosts file.

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3. Check your connection to the edge

When a browser requests your content on staging edge servers, ​Akamai​ adds the X-Akamai-Staging HTTP response header to the request. Look for this header in a request to make sure your browser is pointed to the staging network.

1. Close all browser windows, reopen your browser, and clear the browser cache.

2. Access the Network functionality in your browser:

   • Chrome. Right-click (Command+click on macOS) in the browser window and select Inspect. Click the Network tab. (You may need to click >> to reveal it in the toolbar.)
   • Edge. Press F12, and then press Ctrl+4 to open the Network utility.
   • Firefox. Press Ctrl+Shift+I (Windows) or Command+Opt+E (macOS). This takes you to the Network tool.
   • Safari. If necessary, select Safari > Preferences, click Advanced, then enable Show Develop menu in menu bar. Select Developer > Show Web Inspector and select the Network tab.

3. Point your browser to the domain you included in your local hosts file.

4. In the Network section, click the first file listed. (This is typically the domain for your actual site.)

5. Review the response headers. If you see X-Akamai-Staging: EdgeSuite, you're good. If not, go back to 2 - Point your browser to edge servers and make sure you followed the process correctly.

6. Check for the X-Cache entry.

   HTTP/1.1 200 OK
   Server: Apache/2.4.9 (Unix) OpenSSL/1.0.1-fips
   Last-Modified:Wed, 26 Jun 2022 18:28:37 GMT
   ETag: "1234-5a678b9012c34"
   Accept-Ranges: bytes
   Content-Length: 13162
   Content-Type: image/gif
   Cache-Control: max-age=603241
   Expires: Mon, 14 Apr 2022 16:48:38 GMT
   Date: Mon, 07 Apr 2022 17:04:37 GMT
   X-Akamai-Staging: EdgeSuite
   X-Cache: TCP_MEM_HIT from b128-48-122- 38.deploy.akamaitechnologies.com (AkamaiGHost/6.15.0.3-12528292) (-)
   X-Cache-Key: /L/12345/678910/1a/orign-example.com/images/samplepicture.gif?234567
   Connection: keep-alive
   

7. Use this table to interpret the results.

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4. You're ready to test

Access your website the same way you normally would to test it.

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When testing, use your actual domain for requests—don't use its edge hostname. Edge hostnames are only used by your DNS to reroute requests to the ​Akamai​ edge network.

1. Check key functionality, such as logging in, playback, and so on.

2. Once you're satisfied that your property works, remove the hosts file entry you added and then save it.

3. On macOS 10.6 and later, flush your DNS cache again with the dscacheutil -flushcache command.

Go live

Begin delivering your website or app to your end users through the ​Akamai​ edge network.

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1. Activate your cert on production

You'll need the unique enrollmentId that ​Akamai​ assigned to your certificate enrollment. If you don't have it, you can run an operation in the CPS API to get it.

Update your Standard TLS certificate enrollment to ​Akamai​'s production network.

The tech contact email addresses you set will get a message once the certificate enrollment deploys on production.

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2. Activate your property on production

Push your Ion property to the production network.

In your activation, you should've set "fastPush": true to enable ​Akamai​'s Fast Activation feature. So, your property should be ready in as little as 15 minutes. The notifyEmails addresses you set will get a message when the property is live on the production network.

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3. Change the DNS record to point to your property

Next, you need to change the existing DNS record for your site or application to be a CNAME record that points to the ​Akamai​ edge hostname you set in your Ion property. This will reroute requests for your site or app to the ​Akamai​ edge network.

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Make note of the existing DNS entries for use in troubleshooting.

Before

Here's an example of a generic DNS record for a domain, before you move it to the ​Akamai​ edge network. In it, 1.2.3.4 represents the IP address for your origin server:

docsassociates.com. IN A 1.2.3.4

After

Here's an example of that same domain in a DNS record, pointing to ​Akamai​'s Standard TLS network:

docsassociates.com. IN CNAME docsassociates.com.edgesuite.net

How long does the DNS change take?

The update to your DNS needs to apply before edge network delivery will start. This depends on the time to live (TTL) you've set for your site's DNS record. Typically, this is set to one day. So, it could take up to 24 hours to reroute requests. To shorten this:

1. Reduce your DNS TTL before you change to the ​Akamai​ edge.
2. Revert it back after the change.

You can switch your website or application to the edge network at any time after completing the activation steps and testing. No additional activation or monitoring is required.

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Troubleshooting

If you notice a problem after switching your content to the production network:

1. Roll back the DNS change to point your website or application back to your origin server.

2. Report the problem to ​Akamai​.

This helps you and ​Akamai​ identify the problem in a controlled environment without affecting live end users.