Record Types Supported in Custom DNS Standard Interface
Custom DNS provides two separate interfaces to editing DNS records, the "Standard" interface which provides support for just A, CNAME, MX and TXT records and the "Expert" interface which includes support for additional record types. This KB article provides examples of the use of each type of record supported in the Standard interface. A separate KB article is provided to document the records supported in the Expert Interface.
Note: You can switch between the Standard and Expert interfaces at any time using the "Preferences" link in the upper right hand corner of the window when viewing a Custom DNS zone. This setting is stored on a per zone basis, so some zones can be in the Standard interface and others can be in the Expert interface.
No data is lost when switching between interfaces, but record types other than A, CNAME, MX and TXT will not be visible when in the Standard interface.
Host (A) Records
An A record maps a host name to an IP address. When creating an A record in the standard interface you provide the following data:
| Hostname: | The name of the specific host you are creating |
|---|---|
| TTL: | 20 seconds, 60 seconds, 10 minutes, 4 hours or 6 hours |
| Host Type: | A-record, WebHop Redirect, Offline Hostname |
| IP Address: | The IP address to which the host points (if A-record) |
| WebHop: | The destination URL and optional cloaking to hide the redirect with frames (if WebHop) |
The Hostname field is restricted to allow only the characters A thru Z, the digits 0 thru 9 and the hyphen (-). The host field can be left blank and can also be the single character '*' (which generates a wildcard A record).
The TTL field Time to Live value we will publish for the A record. The longer the cache time, the less often visitors will need to look up a new copy of the record. If the IP address changes frequently, use a low TTL; if the IP address changes very rarely or never changes, use a high TTL.
The Host Type field chooses the desired service. A-record is a standard host record, which publishes the IP Address field in DNS. WebHop Redirect sets your host record to our WebHop server and creates an entry to send visitors to the desired Redirect URL when they visit the host. Offline Hostname sets your host record to our offline website.
The Offline Hostname feature is discussed here; the WebHop service is discussed here.
The IP address field takes an IPv4 address (for example 192.168.1.4).
The Redirect URL field takes a full URL string (such as http://www.mysite.com/subdir/page.html).
If Yes, cloak this page is checked, the redirection will be hidden with frames. The title bar is replaced with the Cloak Page Title.
Enter sample data in the field below to see the A record which would be generated:
Alias (CNAME) Records
CNAME records map one host name to another. When creating a CNAME record in the standard interface you provide the following data:
| Host: | The name of the specific host you are creating |
|---|---|
| Alias To: | The name of the host to which this points |
As with A records, the Host field is restricted to allow only the characters A thru Z, the digits 0 thru 9 and the hyphen (-). The host field can be left blank and can also be the single character '*' (which generates a wildcard CNAME record).
The Alias To field takes a FQDN (fully qualified domain name). This should in general be the name of an A record, but may also point to the name of another CNAME record.
Enter sample data in the field below to see the CNAME record which would be generated:
Mail eXchanger (MX) Records
The purpose of MX records is to indicate where mail for a domain should be delivered. Detailed info on MX records and their use in Custom DNS can be found in the following KB articles:
When creating an MX record in the standard interface you provide the following data:
| Host: | The name of the domain the MX is to be created for. |
|---|---|
| Preference: | A numeric value from 5 to 50 |
| Mail Exchanger: | The name of the host to which mail should be sent |
The Host field is typically left blank and represents the portion of the email address to the right of the @ character. For example, if you are creating an MX record to control where mail addressed to users@example.com should be sent, then the Host field is left blank. For users@freemail.example.com you would enter "freemail".
The Preference field takes a number from 5 to 50 (the Expert interface provides more control over this) and determines the order in which mail servers should be tried. For example, if you have two MX records, one of Preference 5 and one of Preference 10, mail delivery will be attempted to the mail server with the Preference 5 first.
The Mail Exchanger field takes the host name of the mail server to which the mail should be delivered. For example, if your mail server is "mail.example.com" then this is what you enter here. If you are using our MailHop Forward or Relay service then you would enter "mx1.mailhop.org" for the first MX record and "mx2.mailhop.org" for the second MX record as shown in this example:
example.com. 43200 IN MX 10 mx1.mailhop.org. example.com. 43200 IN MX 20 mx2.mailhop.org.
Enter sample data in the field below to see the MX record which would be generated and a description of how mail would be delivered:
example.com. 43200 IN MX 5 mail.example.com. Messages to "user@example.com" would be delivered to the server "mail.example.com"
Text (TXT) Records
TXT records are a funny beast. They used to be used for purely descriptive labels on hosts, so you could pack info into the DNS record that specified something useful about the machine the host pointed to.
For instance, you might have had a TXT record like this:fred.example.com. 43200 IN TXT "This is Fred Jones in Accounting" fred.example.com. 43200 IN TXT "Phone: 202-555-1212"
Very useful in a large organization with hundreds or even thousands of machines. Lately TXT records have started being used as the dumping ground for new, experimental DNS based technologies such as Domain Keys and SPF.
When creating a TXT record in the standard interface you provide the following data:
| Host: | The name of the host you are creating the TXT record for |
|---|---|
| Data: | The text of the TXT record |
The Host field is restricted to allow only the characters A thru Z, the digits 0 thru 9, the hyphen (-) and the underscore (_). The Host field can be left blank and can also be the single character '*' (which generates a wildcard TXT record).
Unlike with most other record types, for TXT records the Data field is essentially free form and may even include spaces. When entering a string that includes spaces you must either enclose the string in double quotes or the individual words will be separately quoted.
An example SPF and Domain Key TXT record:
example.com. 43200 IN TXT "v=spf1 a a:outbound.mailhop.org ~all" _domainkey.example.com. 43200 IN TXT "t=y\; o=~\; r=postmaster@example.com"
Enter sample data in the field below to see the TXT record which would be generated:
hidden.example.com. 43200 IN TXT "Nothing to see here..."
That's All
That's all for the Standard interface. If you need to edit other record types or need more control over the records that the Standard interface provides, see the Expert interface.