Ensure your website is behind U-M Cloudflare
ITS recommends that all websites be behind U-M Cloudflare before they are migrated to Pantheon. If you integrate your website with Cloudflare, Cloudflare will handle a lot of the website's public visitor traffic without passing it on to Pantheon. This will result in Pantheon handling fewer visitors, in many cases reducing the size of the Pantheon rate plan you need, saving you money.
Because Pantheon will only let websites move to a smaller rate plan at the end of July every year, and only then if the website has been consistently below the traffic limits of the smaller plan, it may take up to a year of your website being behind Cloudflare before it can move to a less expensive rate plan. To avoid this possibility, ensure your website is behind Cloudflare before you move it to U-M Pantheon.
Request a U-M Pantheon Website
When you are ready to create a new website or migrate an existing website to the U-M Pantheon workspace, fill out and submit the form for a Pantheon website in the ITS Web Services self-service portal under Website Management -> Create Pantheon Website. Your website will be created automatically, and you will receive an email within an hour once it is ready.
Each person in the MCommunity group that owns the website will receive an email with an invitation link to join the Pantheon Site Team for the website. They should click the link in the email message and accept the invitation.
To manage your website:
- Log in to the Pantheon dashboard.
- Click the Log in with Email button.
- Enter your @umich.edu email address and click the Log In button.
Note: Do not enter a password on this page. Additionally, the "Sign in with Google" button will not work for University of Michigan users.
If you encounter a problem logging in to Pantheon, contact [email protected] for assistance.
Once logged in to the Pantheon dashboard, click the Sites button in the left toolbar to go to the Sites page. Then, click on the name of your website to go to its management page.
At this stage, the empty website is accessible only via the Pantheon dashboard and its domain names ending in pantheon.io.
Build or Migrate a Website
Ensure you are familiar with the Pantheon WebOps Workflow, how code moves up from the Dev to Test to Live environments, and how data moves down from Live to Dev to Test. When you are modifying plugins/modules or themes, Pantheon stores these under the /code folder. When you are managing uploads, attachments, and other data files, Pantheon stores those in the /files folder.
Build a new website
On your site's page in the Pantheon dashboard, use the Dev environment to add functionality and content to your website. Refer to Pantheon WebOps Workflow for more information.
Migrate an existing website
Use Pantheon's manual migration procedure to move your existing website to Pantheon, starting with the "Import Your Code" step in their documentation.
Pantheon can automatically migrate websites from several other web hosting providers, but only if the combined size of the website's code, files, and database is 500MB or smaller. For this reason, ITS recommends using the manual migration procedure referenced above.
ITS can assist with migrating websites from ITS AFS Web Virtual Hosting. If interested, contact [email protected] to request help. Pantheon's Professional Services team can migrate a website from other hosting providers for you for an additional fee, and Pantheon Support can answer questions and fix problems if you're migrating the website yourself.
Publish Your Website
Publishing your website (i.e., "launching it" or "going live") involves signing up for a paid Pantheon plan and then connecting it to the domain name you want to use in the site's URL. Some of the steps are specific to U-M Pantheon and can't be done if you are following only Pantheon's documentation. These steps are labeled with the tag, UM-specific.
- Run Pantheon Launch Check on your Dev and Test environments and address any issues. Use the link below that is appropriate for the Content Management System your website uses.
- UM-specific Move your website to a paid plan.
- Email [email protected] with:
- The Pantheon Site Name for your website (which you can find on the Sites page in the Pantheon dashboard)
- The plan type you would like: Basic plan or the Performance Small plan. (Refer to the Pantheon at U-M Pricing page for plan details.)
- You will receive an email when your website has been moved to a paid plan (within two business days).
- Email [email protected] with:
- Deploy your website to the Live environment.
- UM-specific Connect a domain name.
- Verifying control of the domain name: You should follow the instructions at the links above to both connect the domain name(s) and pre-provision SSL/TLS certificate(s) for them. If you need to use a DNS TXT record to verify control of the domain name, rather than serving a file over HTTP, read the notes in step 5 below concerning making changes to DNS.
- Obtaining new domain names:
- To obtain domain names under umich.edu, umdearborn.edu, or umflint.edu:
- If you (or your local Unit IT support) have access to manage DNS for the zone in which your desired domain name will reside, you may be able to create the domain name yourself.
- Otherwise, submit the Domain Name Request Form at least two weeks before you need the new domain name. For information about university policies regarding domain names, refer to University of Michigan Domain Names.
- To obtain other domain names not under a U-M
.edudomain, submit the External Domain Name Registration Form. ITS currently pays for external domain names. For details, refer to DNS Standards Outside the umich.edu Domain.
- To obtain domain names under umich.edu, umdearborn.edu, or umflint.edu:
Note: Domain names purchased through Pantheon, GoDaddy, Namecheap, and other external domain registrars can be lost for a variety of reasons, including the domain accidentally expiring and being bought up by a domain squatter who holds it for ransom or uses it for a monetized adult content or unlicensed medication website, losing the password (including if people responsible for the domain leave the university), being stolen (for example, through social engineering or phishing), or being taken offline due to a DMCA request. In many cases, it will not be possible to regain control of the domain name, and you will need to purchase a new domain name for your website and communicate the new domain name to your audience. To avoid these from happening, you should purchase domain names through ITS using the External Domain Name Registration Form. If you have a domain name currently hosted by an external domain registrar, you can protect it by transferring it to the university (contact [email protected] for assistance).
- UM-specific Configure DNS and get an SSL certificate.
Follow the instructions at the link above to configure DNS while keeping the following things in mind:- You should have pre-provisioned Pantheon's SSL/TLS certificate(s) for your website when you connected the domain(s) in the previous step. If so, you do not need to do the HTTPS/certificate steps described at the link above.
- If the DNS record(s) for your website currently point to Cloudflare:
- The DNS changes to publish your Pantheon website need to be made in Cloudflare.
- If your website is in a Self Service Cloudflare zone or a Basic Cloudflare zone, you or your unit's IT staff may be able to make the necessary changes in Cloudflare.
- If your website is in a Turnkey Cloudflare zone, you need to have the ITS Cloudflare team make the change. Contact [email protected] with the DNS name(s) that should be changed and the Pantheon IP addresses assigned to your website.
- If you do not know what type of Cloudflare zone your website is in, or if it is in a Self Service zone and you prefer to have the ITS Cloudflare team make the changes in Cloudflare for you, contact [email protected].
- If you need to make changes in regular (non-Cloudflare) DNS,
- If have access to manage DNS for your website's domain name, you may be able to change the DNS records for the domain name to point at Pantheon.
- Your local Unit IT support may be able to change the domain name's DNS records to point at Pantheon.
- In all other cases, contact your campus' Hostmaster team to have them change the domain name's DNS records to point at Pantheon.
- Run Pantheon Launch Check, again, in your Live environment and fix any issues (refer to step 1 above). For complete details on the non-UM-specific steps, refer to the Pantheon Launch Essentials Guide and Pantheon's Go-Live page.