Instructions to build your website

The instructions for building your website are part of the “building your network instructions”. Any discussions about operating bitcoin software will be handled by anafaskrowten. To begin, decide on your website name and get started. Need help? contact us sales@anafaskrowten.com or book a session with me.

  1. Choose and purchase the name of the website you want to create content under. Google Domains offers easy and inexpensive access to domain name registration.
    • This will take about 10 minutes to complete.
    • Step by step video for purchasing from Google domains (Video 1) (google has since moved domain services to Squarespace, updated instructions below)
      • Go to Squarespace Domains — Domain Name Search — Register Your Domain Name
      • Create an account
      • Search for your domain then complete the purchase process.
  2. Create your LunaNode account where you will host your website
    • Step by step video for to setup LunaNode account (Video 2) 8 minutes (only the first 3 minutes pertain to setting up LunaNode account, the remainder is for setting up the software that accepts bitcoin, anafaskrowten will handle that for you until you are ready to learn)
    • You can pay for this service using bitcoin lightning.
  3. Build your first creator website, approximately 1 hour (the first 30 seconds is for setting up the software to accept bitcoin payments, ignore for this tutorial)
    • Log in to luna node – create an account at www.lunanode.com (from step 2)
    • Click Create a new virtual machine. (1:30)
      • Select the location
      • Enter a hostname, use your website domain name EXAMPLE: www.bobstatertots.com
      • Select a plan m.1s (this is the cheapest while you build your website) can be changed later.
      • Scroll down to Image and click on the Application tab and select WordPress (application)
      • Press Create virtual machine
      • Wait until machine is up and running by getting confirmation via email
    • Refresh the virtual machines page, a green box means its ready (3:15)
      • Write down the External IPv4 value for future reference
    • Update the domain name provider with new name servers (5:35)
      • For Squarespace, go to Domains Dashboard then find Advanced Settings area
      • Press EDIT for Nameservers Settings – a pop up box will appear
      • Select “Use custom nameservers”
      • Under name server enter
      • ns1.lunanode.net
      • ns2.lunanode.net
      • ns3.lunanode.net
      • Press Save
      • Select Switch to these settings
      • Click “EDIT DNS” you should see a message that you are using custom nameservers
      • In Luna Node, go to DNS settings to setup DNS (7:25)
        • Add a zone by entering the name of the website without www
          • Name: bobstatertots.com
          • TTL: should be prepopulated
          • Press add zone
        • Once added, click Edit records
          • The NS records should be added, now add A records
          • Click add record
          • Type: A
          • Name: bobstatertots.com
          • Data: (this is the ip address written down)
          • Click add record
        • Click add record again
          • Type: A
          • Name: www.bobstatertots.com
          • Data: (this is the ip address written down)
          • Click add record
            • In these last two steps you added 2 records one with and one without www. When people enter your website address, they will go to the same place regardless if they use www or not.
      • Now we need to ssh into virtual machine so that we can get a certificate for https. (10:50)
        • Go to virtual machines and click on the machine name bobstatertots.com
        • Click on VNC Console
        • A new window opens up, username and password is on the virtual machine page. Copy the password into a notepad file to ensure that you see the correct letters.
        • Once in, use this command (just type the txt below directly into the command line. Just change the name of your website!) This is a special script Luna node provides to register your domain so that you can use https and your viewers won’t be warned that your website is dangerous.
          • sudo /opt/ssl.py bobstatertots.com www.bobstatertots.com
          • press enter
          • you will be prompted to confirm the names of the websites.
          • Wait to see Done! At the end or review and correct any errors.
          • This process starts a job that will keep the certificate up to date.
          • Type exit and press enter to log out
      • Now to get WordPress setup. Go to the browser and go to your new website. (enter the ip address you wrote down if the name does not work yet) (15:50)
        • You will come to a word press page to select language, then press continue
        • Enter a site title Use the name of the website for now
          • Select a username to log in with, this will not be seen by website visitors
          • Update the password if necessary
          • Select an email (the email you select here will be where you will receive emails when someone pays you with bitcoin)
          • Press install WordPress
          • You will be directed to log in again Once logged in you are ready to create the website.
          • Bookmark the login page
  4. Setup custom email, walk through basic settings and setup for WordPress. Also review picking a theme and create a post and publish it. Your WordPress server will use this email to send emails to customers and to you if a password reset is needed.
    • Create a new post with a photo and text.
    • You can use the Gmail app to get emails from this new email address to your mobile device. Go to Settings and Add another account. Select Other as the type and follow the prompts. Use mail.lunanode.net for the server. You will enter the password you used for the email address.
  5. More WordPress website setup items
    • Step by step video of more WordPress setup (Video 5) 12 minutes
      • Adding a new user process
      • Setup SMTP email service in WordPress so that emails can be sent from your website.
        • This is important so that if you forget your password to log into your website you can retrieve your password via email.
        • Create DNS records in Luna Node
        • Sending test emails
        • Sending test password reset email
  6. download btcpay wall plugin
  7. install btcpay server woocommerce plugin
  8. Contact us sales@anafaskrowten.com to setup the connection to begin accepting bitcoin

Eddie Afana