Differences between the DNS records

A, CNAME records are all possible solutions to point a hostname to your site. However, they have small differences that affect how the client reaches your site.

Understanding the differences

These are the main differences:

The A record maps a name to one or more IP addresses when the IP are known and stable.

The CNAME record maps a name to another name. It should only be used when there are no other records on that name.

Which one to use

Understanding the difference between A name and CNAME records will help you decide.

General rules:

• Use an A record if you manage which IP addresses are assigned to a particular machine, or if the IP are fixed (this is the most common case).
• Use a CNAME record if you want to alias one name to another name, and you don't need other records (such as MX records for emails) for the same name.

You should never use a CNAME record for your root domain name (e.g. example.com).

source: dnsimple

Originally published at https://abilng.in/blog/dns.html