Overview
The following describes the most common website DNS records and what they are used for.
Viewing your DNS records
To find your DNS records in the panel, navigate to the Manage Websites page and open the DNS Settings page:
Website DNS records
| Record | Description | More information |
|---|---|---|
|
A |
The Address (A) record forwards the hostname (example.com) to an IPv4 address. | |
|
AAAA |
The IPv6 address record is a modern version of the IPv4 address. It forwards a hostname (example.com) to an IPv6 address. | |
|
ALIAS |
An ALIAS record is a virtual DNS record similar to a CNAME, but with the ability to add it to the root domain name (which is not possible with a CNAME). It can also be added to a subdomain record that already exists where a CNAME must be unique. | |
|
CAA |
A Certification Authority Authorization (CAA) record specifies which certificate authorities (CA) are allowed to issue an SSL certificate for a specific domain name. | |
|
CNAME |
The Canonical Name (CNAME) record points one domain name to another domain name. | |
|
MX |
Mail Exchange (MX) records specify the company where your email is hosted. | |
|
NAPTR |
Name Authority Pointer (NAPTR) records are most often used for Internet telephony. | |
|
NS |
Nameserver (NS) records control where ALL of a domain's DNS records are hosted. | |
|
PTR |
A "pointer record" is used for the reverse mapping of an IP address to a hostname. DreamHost currently only supports reverse DNS records when a Unique IP is added to a domain. DreamCompute also supports PTR records but you must first configure DNS for your domain(s) in order for the records to be created automatically. If the PTR record does not appear to be correct within 15 minutes of making this change, please contact support. |
|
|
SPF |
Sender Policy Framework (SPF) records specify what mail servers are permitted to send email from your domain. | |
|
SRV |
Service locator (SRV) records advertise a specific service that a server offers. | |
|
TXT |
Text (TXT) records are text strings. For example, they can be used with Google verification records and DKIM signing for mail services. |
Additional details
The following sections describe additional DNS records and terminology.
Fully qualified domain name
A FQDN is a unique domain that can't be confused with another. For example, if your site was example.com, you may have several FQDNs such as:
- www.example.com
View this Wikipedia page for further details.
Zone file
A Zone file is a text record that contains the mapping of your domain and subdomains to their corresponding IP addresses. View this Wikipedia page for further details.
DreamHost does not offer a service to export your domain's Zone file. If you need a list of the domain's records, you must manually copy your DNS records from your panel.
SOA record
The Start of Authority (SOA) record is the first resource record in a DNS Zone file. The SOA record specifies the following authoritative information about a specific domain:
- Primary name server of where the SOA record was created.
- Admin email of the Zone file. (A period is used in place of the @ symbol).
- The domain's serial number. This is the revision number of the Zone file.
- Timers:
- Refresh time
- Retry time
- Expire time
- Minimum TTL
Run the following command via SSH (on your computer or server) to look up an SOA record. This example looks up dreamhost.com:
[server]$ nslookup -type=soa dreamhost.com Server: 64.90.63.202 Address: 64.90.63.202#53 Non-authoritative answer: dreamhost.com origin = ns1.dreamhost.com mail addr = hostmaster.dreamhost.com serial = 2015091000 refresh = 14534 retry = 1800 expire = 1814400 minimum = 14400