Whitelabel domains

[bignall]

Hi all. I'm fairly new to Ultimate Multisite. There doesn't seem to be a lot of activity here, but I'm going to post anyway and then send in a support request too :).

So, I have my root site at https://totalreachagency.me ( it has no decent pages, but it works :)
And two subdomains that this is concerning: https://rosina.totalreachagency.me and https://tanklesstlc.totalreachagency.me . And all works as well as other subdomains I use.

My hosting is on Siteground and DNS for totalreachagency.me as well as rosinabignall.com and tanklesstlc.com is at Cloudflare.

I had some trouble getting totalreachagency.me to work, but I eventually did only I can't remember exactly what was the kicker. I do know I installed the Cloudflare plugin and that seemed to help, but I don't think it was the last thing I did. And I can't use the Cloudflare plugin for the subdomains because it says it only works for the base network. Still, I've replicated the Cloudflare settings, but I still can't get the domains to work.

I am trying to assign them both other domains, but am having trouble:

TanklessTLC
I set up domain tanklesstlc.com A record to point to 35.215.112.179 (which ultimate multisite claims is the IP address of the network, but is not the IP that Siteground says is the domain for this website and is not the IP of totalreachagency.me and all its subdomains that work) made sure Proxy was off and that SSL was on. It got through the IP checks, but I can't get it to get through the SSL checks.

I've tried turning off the SSL and setting to Ready without SSL (which I had success with on tanklesstlc.totalreachagency.me when I couldn't get it to pass the SSL - I've since gotten it to work with SSL) and set active. But then visiting http://tanklesstlc.com takes me to the default Siteground (I think) page with no SSL.

I then tried setting the IP to 35.215.98.215 which is the IP Siteground says is for the totalreachagency.me site and what its DNS record is set to. Of course the IP check won't pass, so I just set it to Ready with no SSL and visited the site. Still no luck.

I set up umtest to point to 35.215.112.179. It go through the IP test, but not the SSL check. I changed it to Ready without SSL and active, but also got the default web page. I changed it to 35.215.98.215, but still no luck.

I've now set up:
tanklesstlc.com -> 35.215.112.179 - Ready without SSL, active
umtest.tanklesstlc.com -> 35.215.98.215 - Ready without SSL, active
*.tanklesstlc.com -> tanklesstlc.com (CNAME so the www and anything else should work)
Proxy: off on all records
SSL: auto with Full(strict) currently
Both tanklesstlc.com and umtest.tanklesstlc.com are registered in UM to go to tanklesstlc.totalreachagency.me
Cloudflare: Always use HTTPS: on
UM: Is secure: umtest: off, tanklesstlc.com: off

RosinaBignall.com:
I set up umtest.rosinabignall.com to go to 35.215.112.179 . IP check went fine. SSL sailed through just fine. It set to Ready and I activated it. No luck - it went to the default page with no SSL just like above. I tried changing the IP to 35.215.98.215 . Still no luck.

I set up umtest2.rosinabignall.com to go to 35.215.112.179 . IP check went fine. But it can't get past the SSL check and eventually says:
[2026-02-20 03:05:32] [INFO] - SSL checks tried for the max amount of times (5 times, one every 5 minutes). Marking as ready without SSL.
It sets it to SSL Failed. I changed it to Ready without SSL and active. But no luck.

The current setup is:
umtest.rosinabignall.com -> 35.215.98.215 - Ready, active
umtest2.rosinabignall.com -> 35.215.112.179 - Ready without SSL, active
*.rosinabignall.com -> 35.215.105.241 (which is the IP of rosinabignall.com)
Proxy: off for umtest and umtest2
SSL: auto, currently Full
Both umtest and umtest2 are registered in UM to go to rosina.totalreachagency.me
Cloudflare: Always use HTTP: on
UM: Is secure: umtest: on umtest2: off

The current setup for totalreachagency.me is:
totalreachagency.me -> 35.215.98.215
*.totalreachagency.me -> totalreachagency.me
www.totalreachagency.me -> totalreachagency.me
Proxy: on for all records
SSL: auto, currently Full(strict)
Cloudflare: Always use HTTPS: on

I have cleared the cache at Cloudflare multiple times and worked in Development mode - not that it should matter since they aren't proxied there's no caching anyway -, and done all my testing in Incognito windows so there's no browser cache.

So what am I missing? Please any ideas or advice to get this working?

[bignall]

UPDATE! I spoke with Dave and he helped me diagnose my problem.

Because I have a shared hosting plan, I need to register the domains as parked domains for the main the website in Siteground. That makes the sites work, but no SSL. So then, for each domain/subdomain you register as a parked domain, you have to get a Let's Encrypt (or one of the others that cost extra) SSL certificate. After that everything worked perfectly!

On some hosts UM can handle that automatically but on Siteground and probably a lot of other shared hosting plans, it can't, so you have to do it by hand for each domain you add. It might be called something other than Parked Domains on other hosting plans and could well be a different SSL certificate plan, but you should be able to find something similar.

Thanks again, Dave!