CNAME Records

CNAME (Canonical) RECORD INFORMATION

These records allow domain names to be resolved to another hostname of your choice. The hostname is something you choose and the domain is the location you want to point to.

CNAME records are in the format of Hostname → Domain name. (See example below).

CNAME Records info

From the above example, the hostname is set to 'office' and the domain name is set to 'myotherdomainname.co.uk'. This is a valid CNAME record. If this record was for the domain domainname.co.uk then it would mean that office.domainname.co.uk points to myotherdomainname.co.uk. Please note that the domain name must be a valid and working domain name.

Host

Host can be a string containing alpha-numeric characters including hyphens. May be a single * character to denote a wildcard field. Cannot be an @ character.

Can also contain a period between strings, (i.e. test.dev) but not at the beginning or end of a string.

Domain

Domain can contain alpha-numeric characters and hyphens. Can also contain periods between strings, but not at the beginning of the domain. **

myotherdomainname.co.uk or www.myotherdomainname.co.uk are valid.

** In order for the domain name to be valid a period is required at the end of the domain name. However, please note that you do not need to append a period at the end of the domain name as we will automatically do this when you add the record. If you do append a period our script will take this into account and not take any further action.

Wildcards

Wildcards in practice, if you need one, you should only use one entry in DNS. Either under the A records or the CNAME records – not both.

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