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You can assign custom CNAME records to DigitalOcean Managed MySQL Standard Edition clusters during cluster and replica creation using the DigitalOcean API.

Custom CNAME records let clients connect using a domain name you control, such as db.example.com, instead of the cluster’s default *.db.ondigitalocean.com hostname. This is useful if you provide database access to end users and want to use your own branding.

Limits

• Custom CNAMEs are available for Standard Edition clusters only. Advanced Edition clusters do not support custom CNAMEs.
• Custom CNAMEs are available through the DigitalOcean API only. There is no Control Panel or doctl CLI support.
• You can only add custom CNAMEs when creating a cluster or replica. They can’t be added to or updated on existing clusters or replicas.
• Each cluster supports a maximum of 16 custom CNAMEs.
• Each CNAME must be a valid RFC 1123 hostname (for example, db.example.com).
• Each CNAME can be up to 253 characters long.

Configure Custom CNAMEs at Cluster Creation

To assign custom CNAMEs when creating a database cluster, include the do_settings object with a service_cnames array in the request body of the create database cluster API call.

The following example creates a cluster with two custom CNAMEs:

{
  "name": "db-example",
  "engine": "<engine>",
  "version": "<version>",
  "region": "nyc3",
  "size": "db-s-1vcpu-1gb",
  "num_nodes": 1,
  "do_settings": {
    "service_cnames": [
      "db.example.com",
      "database.example.com"
    ]
  }
}

Send the request using curl:

curl -X POST "https://api.digitalocean.com/v2/databases" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $DIGITALOCEAN_TOKEN" \
  -d '{
    "name": "db-example",
    "engine": "<engine>",
    "version": "<version>",
    "region": "nyc3",
    "size": "db-s-1vcpu-1gb",
    "num_nodes": 1,
    "do_settings": {
      "service_cnames": [
        "db.example.com",
        "database.example.com"
      ]
    }
  }'

Replace <engine> with the database engine (for example, pg, mysql, or valkey) and <version> with the engine version.

The response includes the do_settings object with the custom CNAMEs you configured.

Configure Custom CNAMEs for Read Replicas

You can also assign custom CNAMEs when creating a read replica. Include the do_settings object in the request body of the create read replica API call:

curl -X POST "https://api.digitalocean.com/v2/databases/<your-cluster-uuid>/replicas" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $DIGITALOCEAN_TOKEN" \
  -d '{
    "name": "db-replica-example",
    "size": "db-s-1vcpu-1gb",
    "do_settings": {
      "service_cnames": [
        "db-replica.example.com"
      ]
    }
  }'

Set Up DNS Records

After you create a cluster with custom CNAMEs, configure DNS records with your DNS provider to point each CNAME to the cluster’s default hostname. Create a CNAME record for each custom domain that resolves to the cluster’s *.db.ondigitalocean.com hostname.

For example, if your cluster’s default hostname is db-example-do-user-1234567-0.db.ondigitalocean.com, create a DNS record like:

db.example.com.    CNAME    db-example-do-user-1234567-0.db.ondigitalocean.com.