CNAME on XName.org / Newbie Question

cname-recorddomain-name-system

I have about 20 domains "pointing" to my server via A-type DNS records, now that I am moving servers I found it rather tedious to change the IP addresses for all of them and thought that adding a CName would make more sense.

I cannot, however, figure out how to add a CNAME-type record for the domain name itself, and not any subdomains (I am using xname.org as my DNS provider).

So what exactly to I put into the Alias field for the TLD itself?

thanks!

Best Answer

You can't - it's not allowed to put a CNAME in the apex of a domain (i.e in the same place as the NS and SOA records).

See §3.6.2 of RFC 1034

If a CNAME RR is present at a node, no other data should be present; this ensures that the data for a canonical name and its aliases cannot be different

Related Solutions

DNS – Using CNAME to Point to Another Domain to Save IP Addresses

That's exactly the point of a CNAME. A CNAME does not need to point to a DNS in the same zone, it can point to any DNS name registered with any nameserver.

What it means for your clients is an additional DNS lookup on the NS for the other host, but that's a tiny price to pay for the majority of websites on the internet.

How do you add an A record for a root domain

First: @ is a standard "master file format" thing. It means "the current zone."

Your problem is simple. Add a '.' to the last line. that is, you want:

* IN CNAME domain.com.

The tailing '.' at the end of the name means "do not append the current origin name to this"

If you leave it off, you get (in this case) "domain.com.domain.com."

Best Answer

Related Solutions

DNS – Using CNAME to Point to Another Domain to Save IP Addresses

How do you add an A record for a root domain

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