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CNAME-records are domain name aliases for subdomains.

Often computers on the Internet have multiple functions such as web-server, ftp-server, chat-server etc.

To mask this, CNAME-records can be used to give a single computer multiple names (aliases). For example computer "xyz.com" may be both a web-server and an ftp-server, so two CNAME-records are defined: "www.xyz.com" = "xyz.com" and "ftp.xyz.com" = "xyz.com".

Sometimes a single server computer hosts many different domain names (take ISPs), and so CNAME-records may be defined such as "www.abc.com" = "www.xyz.com".

The most popular use the CNAME-record type is to provide access to a web-server using both the standard "www.domain.com" and "domain.com" (without the www). This is usually done by creating an A-record for the short name (without www), and a CNAME-record for the www name pointing to the short name.

CNAME-records can also be used when a computer or service needs to be renamed, to temporarily allow access through both the old and new name.

A CNAME-record should always point to an A-record to avoid circular references.

You can use the CNAME-record in the normal form or the raw form on our servers. The format in which to enter the data is as follows:

Standard form:
www CNAME domainname.com
@ A 1.2.3.4

Raw form:
www 86400 CNAME domainname.com.
@ 86400 A 1.2.3.4

Where 'www' is a subdomain CNAME pointed to '@' which is an A-record for the root zone name. 86400 is the TTL in seconds.

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