What is a "CNAME" record?

CNAME" records, short for "Canonical Name", create an alias from a domain name to another. You could create an alias from "yahoo.mydomain.com" to "www.yahoo.com", and every reference to "yahoo.mydomain.com" would go to the other location, regardless how yahoo changed their IP addresses! Be careful, however; CNAMEs won't work everywhere. If you create an MX record, and the name used for the mail server was defined using a CNAME, you might lose e-mail!

 

  • 69 Users Found This Useful
Was this answer helpful?

Related Articles

What is propagation?

Domain Propagation is the period of time, or delay, involved in sending your domain’s address...

What is DNS?

Domain Name System (DNS) is a database system that translates a computer's fully qualified domain...

How can I check to see if DNS is working?

A frequent mistake is to use "ping" to test DNS. On Windows NT/2K and Unix, there are tools...

What is an "A" record?

An "A" record, also called an "address" record, ties a domain name to an IP address. If there is...

What is an "MX" record?

MX" ("Mail eXchanger") records are used to specify what server on the Internet is running e-mail...