Domain Name Systems (DNS) use different record types for different purposes. This article helps you determine which record type you should use when creating a DNS record in the Cloud Control Panel.

A or AAAA#

Type A is an IPv4 address record. Type AAAA is an IPv6 Address record, so use this record type if your server has an IPv6 address as a target.

Use an A or AAAA record to point to an IP address. In simple cases, you might have a single A or AAAA record as your base record pointing to a single IP address. Often, there are A or AAAA records that point to different IP addresses.

Note: If you have a base record (not required), it must be an A or AAAA record. For example, you could have www.mydomain.com as an A record that points to 1.2.3.4, and www.domain.com might be a CName record that points to www.myotherimportantdomain.com. Likewise, you might have a mail.domain.com record pointing to 5.6.7.8.

Canonical name (CName)#

Use a CName record to point to another domain name. For example, point mail.mydomain.com to mydomain.com.

Mail exchange (MX)#

Use an MX record for mail delivery. For example, creating an MX record for domain.com enables you to set up an email address like mailto:mike@domain.com.

Name server (NS)#

Use an NS record to delegate an authoritative DNS server for a domain or subdomain.

Server locator record (SLR)#

Use an SLR to assign a host and port for certain services, such as a Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP), for a domain.

Text (TXT)#

Use a TXT record to store data types, such as Sender Policy Framework (SPF) or DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM) records.