On 23 Oct 2009, at 13:46, DAve wrote:
> Good morning.
Drifting onto evening here. Better get breakfast. :-)
> I have been asked by my co-workers and sales why I always create a A
> record for new domains we host instead of a CNAME.
>
> The issue I run into lately with some domains is that a client has a
> website with a industry host such as frank.relator.com and he wants
> to have DNS point www.frank.com to frank.relator.com with a CNAME.
> The client does not want an A record for frank.com. Or, they want a
> CANME directing to another domain.
>
> Somewhere, in a class far far away, I was taught a DNS zone had to
> have a A record to function properly. I can't seem to locate
> anything in the RFCs.
>
> Am I wrong?
The rules are quite simply that you can't put a CNAME at a point of
delegation. And a zone will function just fine with only delegation.
So yes you were mistaken, a zone does not need anything in it apart
from that delegation, including A/AAAA records. The delegation exists
at the apex of the zone, where it meets the GTLD/CCTLD servers, and
unfortunately there you cannot put your CNAME to another host (you can
only use static A/AAAA). This means most thirdparty-hosted sites only
have the www CNAME to them and cannot support without the WWW prefix.
Cheers,
Sabahattin
