Henhouse Web Hosting User Guide

Getting Started with Henhouse

Henhouse is a static website hosting service. You upload your site as a compressed file, and Henhouse serves it on the web. You can host your site on your own subdomain or a custom domain you own.

Before You Begin

You'll need:

  • An email address for receiving Henhouse sign-in links.

  • A static website packaged as a compressed archive of your site's files. The following formats are supported:

    • .7z (7-Zip)
    • .zip (ZIP)
    • .tar (uncompressed TAR)
    • .tar.gz (GZIP compressed TAR)
    • .tar.bz2 (BZ2 compressed TAR)
    • .tar.zst (ZST compressed TAR)
    • .tar.xz (XZ compressed TAR)

Instructions for ZIP are included below. For instructions on creating TAR files, see The Tar Command in Linux. For 7-Zip, see the 7-Zip site.

Here are the file types that Henhouse supports:

  • Web assets: HTML, CSS, JS, JSON
  • Images: PNG, JPG, GIF, SVG, WebP
  • Documents: PDF, MD
  • Fonts: WOFF, WOFF2, TTF, OTF
  • Crawler files: robots.txt, sitemap.xml

Create a ZIP File From Your Site Folder

This section shows how to create a .zip file on Mac or Windows. If you are using Linux, we recommend using the TAR format.

MacOS using Finder

  1. Open Finder and browse to the folder that contains your site files.
  2. Right-click (or Control-click) the folder.
  3. In the pop-up menu, select Compress.
  4. A new zipped file with the same name is created in the same location. For example, if the folder name is website, the ZIP file is website.zip.

Windows using File Explorer

  1. Open File Explorer and browse to the folder that contains your site files.
  2. Press and hold (or right-click) the folder, select Send to, and then select Compressed (zipped) folder.
  3. A new zipped folder with the same name is created in the same location. For example, if the folder name is website, the ZIP file is website.zip.

Linux using the terminal

cd to the directory above the directory that contains your site files. Issue the following command:

zip -r website.zip ~/website/

Replace ~/website/ with the location and name of the directory that contains your site files.

Sign In to Henhouse

Henhouse uses passwordless sign-in by sending a sign-in link to your email address.

  1. Go to the Henhouse sign-in page at https://app.henhouse.coop/sign-in.
  2. Enter your email address and click Send me a sign-in link.
  3. Check your inbox for an email from Henhouse.
  4. Click the link in the email. You're now signed in.

The sign-in link expires after a few minutes. If it doesn't work, return to the dashboard and request a new one. If you still have trouble, contact us.

Create a Site

Each site has its own web address. There is no limit to the number of sites you can create, but keep in mind that Henhouse charges per site.

  1. From the Henhouse dashboard, click Create a new site.
  2. In the panel that opens, select your team from the dropdown.
  3. Type a name for your site. Use only letters, numbers, and dashes (for example, my-site-name).
  4. Click Create.

Your site is created immediately, and a placeholder page goes live at my-site-name.henhouse.page. You can visit that address right now to confirm it's working.

Upload Your Site in the Henhouse Dashboard

Once your site is created, you can upload your files to publish content.

  1. Go to the Henhouse sign-in page at https://app.henhouse.coop/sign-in and generate a sign-in link.
  2. In the dashboard, find your site in the list and click Site Settings.
  3. Under Upload Site, click **Choose File, then select your .zip file (or another compressed archive). If you want to upload from the command line, see "Upload using the curl command" below.
  4. Click Upload.

Your content goes live as soon as the upload completes. Refresh your site's address to see the changes.

Upload Using the curl Command

You can upload your site using the curl command instead of the dashboard. The command is shown on your Site Settings page under Upload Site. Copy the command and run it in a command line terminal to update your site.

Updating Your Site

To update your site, upload a .zip file (or another compressed archive) containing the new files. The files in Henhouse are overwritten with the new files.

Important: Files that are in Henhouse but not in the new upload are deleted.

Add a Custom Domain (Optional)

By default, your site lives at your-site-name.henhouse.page. If you own a domain name (like example.com), you can host your site there, either at the root domain example.com or a subdomain like blog.example.com.

Step 1: Enter your domain in Henhouse

  1. On the Site Settings page, scroll to Custom Domain.
  2. Type your domain name in the Domain Name field (for example, example.com). If you want to host your site on a subdomain, enter it instead (for example, blog.example.com).
  3. Click Save.

Step 2: Update your DNS records

Log in to your domain registrar (the service that manages your domain; for example, GoDaddy or Namecheap) and navigate to the DNS settings area. Add one of these records:

Use an ALIAS record for root domains like example.com (recommended):

TypeHostValue
ALIAS@(shown on your Henhouse Site Settings page)

If your registrar doesn't support ALIAS records, use an A record:

TypeHostValue
A@(shown on your Henhouse Site Settings page)

Use a CNAME record for subdomains like blog.example.com:

TypeHostValue
CNAMEblog(shown on your Henhouse Site Settings page)

Redirect www to your root domain

Some of your site visitors will go to www.example.com instead of example.com. Add a CNAME record so www redirects to your root domain:

TypeHostValue
CNAMEwwwexample.com

Replace example.com with your actual domain name.

DNS changes can take a few minutes to a few hours to take effect. Once they propagate, Henhouse automatically provisions a TLS/SSL certificate for your domain. You'll see Certificate Valid on your settings page when it's ready.

Troubleshooting

ProblemTry this
I didn't receive a sign-in linkCheck your email spam folder. If the message is not there, wait a few minutes and request a new link.
My site still shows the Henhouse placeholder page after uploadingConfirm that your .tar.gz archive includes an index.html at the top level.
My custom domain shows a certificate errorDNS changes may still be in progress, so Henhouse hasn't created your certificate yet. Wait an hour and reload the settings page. If the error persists, verify your DNS records match the values shown in Site Settings.

Managing Your Team

Click Team Settings next to your team name to see members and sites.