CNAME Records

CNAME allows a machine to be known by one or more hostnames.  There must always be an A record first, and this is known as the canonical or official name.  For example:

yourdomain.com.  A  192.168.0.7

Using CNAME, you can point other hostnames to the canonical (A record) address.  For example:

ftp.yourdoman.com.  CNAME  yourdomain.com.

mail.yourdomain.com.  CNAME  yourdomain.com.

ssh.yourdomin.com.  CNAME  yourdomain.com.

CNAME records make it possible to access your domain through ftp.yourdomain.com,  mail.yourdomain.com, etc.  Without a proper CNAME record, you will not be able to connect to your server using such addresses.

Entering a CNAME record

If we wanted home.yourdomain.com to point to yourdomain.com, we could enter the record in two ways:

home  CNAME  yourdomain.com.
The first method allows you to simply enter the subdomain.  Do not put a period after the subdomain name.

home.yourdoman.com.  CNAME  yourdomain.com.
The second method requires you to enter the entire hostname, followed by a period.

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