Adding custom DNS records

You can add custom DNS records for a fully hosted domain as well as a domain set to DNS only. It all depends on what records you are creating and why you need them.

Generally speaking, if you want your site hosted on DreamHost's servers, keep your site as Fully Hosted. However, if you want your site to point away from DreamHost by creating A or CNAME records, the first step is to remove the hosting service already applied to your domain at DreamHost.

• A record
• AAAA record
• ALIAS record
• CNAME record
• MX record
• TXT record
• NAPTR record
• SPF record
• SRV record
• CAA record
• DKIM record
• Nameservers
• Unique IPv4 or IPv6 records
• Additional details

Manually setting to 'DNS Only'

View the following article for instructions on how to set your domain to 'DNS Only':

• Setting your domain to 'DNS Only'

This is necessary if your site is currently hosted at DreamHost and you want to point your DNS to another hosting company using A or CNAME records.

Setting to 'DNS Only' by adding a root record

Adding a custom DNS record for root (@) or the www subdomain will prompt you to deactivate your domain's hosting. This removes hosting and the default root (@) and www records, allowing you to point your domain to a different host. View the following article for further details:

• Adding root records to change a hosted domain to 'DNS Only'

A records are IP addresses. They can be added to point your website to a different hosting company, or different subdomains of your site to external services.

Pointing a subdomain to a specific IP address

1. Navigate to the Manage Websites page.
2. Open the DNS Settings page:

   

   • If in Grid view, click the 'vertical 3 dots' button under your domain. From the popout menu, click the DNS Settings link.
   • If in List view, click the 'vertical 3 dots' button to the right of your domain. From the popout menu, click the DNS Settings link.

     The domain's DNS records display.

3. Click the Add Record button.
4. Hover over the A Record section and click the ADD link.
   • Host: This is either the root domain or a subdomain (blog, store, etc).
     • Root A record: If you want to create an A record for the root domain to point away from DreamHost, you must first set the domain to DNS Only. You can then leave this field blank.
     • Subdomain A record: For a subdomain (blog, dev, shop, etc), enter the subdomain name in this field.
   • Points to: Enter the IP address the subdomain will point to.

     You do not need to add the domain name in the Host field.

5. Click the Add Record button to save.

After clicking the Add Record button, the propagation for the new record begins. This can take up to 6 hours before the new record updates online.

AAAA records are IPv6 addresses. They can be added to point your website to a different hosting company, or different subdomains of your site to external services.

Pointing a subdomain to a specific IPv6 address

1. Navigate to the Manage Websites page.
2. Open the DNS Settings page:

   

   • If in Grid view, click the 'vertical 3 dots' button under your domain. From the popout menu, click the DNS Settings link.
   • If in List view, click the 'vertical 3 dots' button to the right of your domain. From the popout menu, click the DNS Settings link.

     The domain's DNS records display.

3. Click the Add Record button.
4. Hover over the AAAA Record section and click the ADD link.
   • Host: This is either the root domain or a subdomain
     • Root AAAA record: If you want to create an AAAA record for the root domain to point away from DreamHost, you must first set the domain to DNS Only. You can then leave this field blank.
     • Subdomain AAAA record: For a subdomain (blog, dev, shop, etc), enter the subdomain name in this field.
   • Points to: Enter the IPv6 address the subdomain will point to. For example:

     2607:f298:5:104f::765:5be

     You do not need to add the domain name in the Host field.

5. Click the Add Record button to save.

After clicking the Add Record button, the propagation for the new record begins. This can take up to 6 hours before the new record updates online.

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.

The difference between ALIAS and CNAME records

CNAME records

It's not possible to add a CNAME record to the root domain.

• example.com

This is because the root domain (example.com) can only use an A record (IP address). The CNAME record is used to point a subdomain such as www.example.com or  calendar.example.com to another service using a hostname (not an IP).

CNAME records can only be added to a subdomain that is not currently using A records.

ALIAS records

It IS possible to add an ALIAS record to the root domain even if an A record is already assigned to it.

• example.com

ALIAS records can also be added to a currently used subdomain. For example, if www.example.com or calendar.example.com already have A or CNAME records configured, you can still add an ALIAS record to those same names. In this way, it can coexist with other records on that name.

ALIAS records point to a hostname just like a CNAME record (such as myapp.herokuapp.com). They do not point to an IP address like an A record.

1. Navigate to the Manage Websites page.
2. Open the DNS Settings page:

   

   • If in Grid view, click the 'vertical 3 dots' button under your domain. From the popout menu, click the DNS Settings link.
   • If in List view, click the 'vertical 3 dots' button to the right of your domain. From the popout menu, click the DNS Settings link.

     The domain's DNS records display.

3. Click the Add Record button.
4. Hover over the ALIAS Record section and click the ADD link.
   • Host: This is either the root domain or a subdomain (blog, store, etc).
     • Root record: If you want to create an ALIAS record for the root domain, leave this field blank.
     • Subdomain record: For a subdomain (blog, dev, shop, etc), enter the subdomain name in this field.
   • Points to: Enter the hostname location you’d like this record to point to.

     You do not need to add the domain name in the Host field.

5. Click the Add Record button to save.

After clicking the Add Record button, the propagation for the new record begins. This can take up to 6 hours before the new record updates online.

Along with custom A records, you can point your hosting away from DreamHost with a CNAME record. This record is created to point one domain to another as opposed to pointing one domain to an IP address like the custom A record.

Please keep in mind that a CNAME record can only be created on a subdomain. This means the root record (example.com) cannot be a CNAME record and must always be an A record.

1. Navigate to the Manage Websites page.
2. Open the DNS Settings page:

   

   • If in Grid view, click the 'vertical 3 dots' button under your domain. From the popout menu, click the DNS Settings link.
   • If in List view, click the 'vertical 3 dots' button to the right of your domain. From the popout menu, click the DNS Settings link.

     The domain's DNS records display.

3. Click the Add Record button.
4. Hover over the CNAME Record section and click the ADD link.
5. Enter the following:
   • Host: This field can be anything. But very often it’s just www. Adding www points the www subdomain away from DreamHost.
   • Points to: Enter the location you’d like this record to point to.

     You do not need to add the domain name in the Host field.

6. Click the Add Record button to save.

After clicking the Add Record button, the propagation for the new record begins. This can take up to 6 hours before the new record updates online.

MX records are DNS records that are necessary for delivering email to your address. The company where your MX records are pointing is where your email is sent.

There are two options to add MX records in the panel.

Option 1: If your domain is hosted at DreamHost

If you've added hosting to your domain, you already have MX records configured at DreamHost. If you need to host your email at another company while continuing to host your website at DreamHost you must configure custom MX records to replace the current records in your panel. View the following article for further information:

• Configuring custom MX records

Option 2: If your domain is not hosted at DreamHost

If your domain is registered at DreamHost but there is no hosting plan, you can add MX records to point your mail to another company.

1. Navigate to the Manage Websites page.
2. Open the DNS Settings page:

   

   • If in Grid view, click the 'vertical 3 dots' button under your domain. From the popout menu, click the DNS Settings link.
   • If in List view, click the 'vertical 3 dots' button to the right of your domain. From the popout menu, click the DNS Settings link.

     The domain's DNS records display.

3. Click the Add Record button.
4. Hover over the MX Record section and click the ADD link.
   • Host: This field is usually left blank. Only add something here if your new mail provider requires a host which is often a subdomain, such as www or mail.
   • Points to: Enter the MX record to point to.
   • Priority: Enter the priority number of this MX record. When adding multiple MX records, this value controls which MX record is used first.

     You do not need to add the domain name in the Host field.

5. Only check the box titled I will still check my email at DreamHost if you are using a Mail Service Providers.
6. Click the Add Record button to save.

After clicking the Add Record button, the propagation for the new record begins. This can take up to 6 hours before the new record updates online.

TXT (Text) records allow you to associate text with a specific host. A common example is adding a Google site verification record, or adding a DMARC email record to your site.

1. Navigate to the Manage Websites page.
2. Open the DNS Settings page:

   

   • If in Grid view, click the 'vertical 3 dots' button under your domain. From the popout menu, click the DNS Settings link.
   • If in List view, click the 'vertical 3 dots' button to the right of your domain. From the popout menu, click the DNS Settings link.

     The domain's DNS records display.

3. Click the Add Record button.
4. Hover over the TXT Record section and click the ADD link.
5. Enter the following:
   • Host: This field can be anything. Very often it’s left blank.
   • TXT Value *: Enter the text value of this record to point to.

     You do not need to add the domain name in the Host field.

6. Click the Add Record button to save.

After clicking the Add Record button, the propagation for the new record begins. This can take up to 6 hours before the new record updates online.

Name Authority Pointer (NAPTR) records are most often used for Internet telephony. These records support the use of regular expressions. Here is an example NAPTR record:

$ORIGIN 4.3.2.1.5.5.5.0.0.8.1.e164.arpa.
IN NAPTR 100 10 "U" "E2U+sip" "!^.*$!sip:customer-service@example.com!" .
IN NAPTR 102 10 "U" "E2U+email" "!^.*$!mailto:information@example.com!" .

View the following link for detailed information about this type of record.

• https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc2915

Adding

1. Navigate to the Manage Websites page.
2. Open the DNS Settings page:

   

   • If in Grid view, click the 'vertical 3 dots' button under your domain. From the popout menu, click the DNS Settings link.
   • If in List view, click the 'vertical 3 dots' button to the right of your domain. From the popout menu, click the DNS Settings link.

     The domain's DNS records display.

3. Click the Add Record button.
4. Hover over the NAPTR Record section and click the ADD link.
   • Host: Enter the hostname to enable this record for, or leave blank.
   • Order: A number (from 0 - 65535) that specifies the order in which multiple NAPTR records are processed. Lower values are processed before higher values.
   • Preference:  A number (from 0 - 65535) that specifies the order in which multiple NAPTR records, with equal Order values, are processed. Lower values are processed before higher values.
   • Flags: A lowercase string containing flags to control aspects of the rewriting and interpretation of the fields in the record. At this time only four flags, s, a, u, and p, are defined.
   • Service: Specifies the service(s) available down this rewrite path. It may also specify the particular protocol that is used to talk with a service.
   • Regex: A string containing a substitution expression that is applied to the original string held by the client in order to construct the next domain name to lookup.
   • Replacement:  The next fully qualified domain name to query for NAPTR records depending on the values found in the flags field. This field is only used if the regular expression field is empty. If the Regex field contains a value, this field is not used.

     You do not need to add the domain name in the Host field.

5. Click the Add Record button to save.

After clicking the Add Record button, the propagation for the new record begins. This can take up to 6 hours before the new record updates online.

Sender Policy Framework (SPF) records specify what mail servers are permitted to send email from your domain.

For details on how to set up SPF records, please visit the following article:

• Add an SPF record

SRV (service) records are used to identify computers that host a specific service and then establish a connection between that service and the website.

Certain programs and applications may require the set up of these types of records to make those services active. A common example are the following two Microsoft SRV records. More information can be found at the following link:

• Microsoft's two SRV records

Format

Your standard SRV record is in this type of format:

_service._protocol.name. TTL class SRV priority weight port target.

Adding

1. Navigate to the Manage Websites page.
2. Open the DNS Settings page:

   

   • If in Grid view, click the 'vertical 3 dots' button under your domain. From the popout menu, click the DNS Settings link.
   • If in List view, click the 'vertical 3 dots' button to the right of your domain. From the popout menu, click the DNS Settings link.

     The domain's DNS records display.

3. Click the Add Record button.
4. Hover over the SRV Record section and click the ADD link.

   The example below shows how to add the following record.

   _sipfederationtls._tcp	SRV	100 1 5061 sipfed.online.lync.com.

   Repeat the following steps to add any additional SRV records required.

5. Enter the following:

   When entering an SRV record in your panel, ignore the TTL, class, and SRV fields.

   • Name: This is most often left blank.
   • Service/Sip: sipfederationtls. Do not add the underscore before this value, or the period at the end.
   • Protocol: tcp. Do not add the underscore before this value.
   • Priority: 100
   • Weight: 1
   • Port: 5061
   • Target: sipfed.online.lync.com

     You do not need to add the domain name in the Name field.

6. Click the Add Record button.

After clicking the Add Record button, the propagation for the new record begins. This can take up to 6 hours before the new record updates online.

A Certification Authority Authorization (CAA) record is used to specify which certificate authorities (CA) are allowed to issue a certificate for a specific domain name.

• If a CAA record is present, only the CAs listed in the CAA record(s) are allowed to issue certificates for the domain.
• If no CAA record is present, any CA is allowed to issue a certificate for the domain.

These records also give the owner of the domain the ability to set notification rules in case someone requests a certificate from an unauthorized certificate authority. View the following article for further information:

• CAA policy records

Subdomains

Most often, a CAA record is added to the primary domain name (example.com).

A CAA record added to the primary domain (example.com) also applies to all subdomains such as blog.example.com. However, a CAA record added to any subdomain will take precedence over the CAA record added to the primary domain name allowing you more control over the subdomain record.

Adding a CAA record

1. Navigate to the Manage Websites page.
2. Open the DNS Settings page:

   

   • If in Grid view, click the 'vertical 3 dots' button under your domain. From the popout menu, click the DNS Settings link.
   • If in List view, click the 'vertical 3 dots' button to the right of your domain. From the popout menu, click the DNS Settings link.

     The domain's DNS records display.

3. Click the Add Record button.
4. Hover over the CAA Record section and click the ADD link.

   Each CAA record created only applies to a single certificate authority. This means you would need to create an additional CAA record for each additional certificate authority that is allowed to issue a certificate for this domain.

   • flag: The value of 1 is used to represent the critical flag. Setting this field to 1 instructs certificate authorities that they must understand the following property tag before issuing a certificate.
   • tag: Choose from the following:
     • Authorization Entry by Domain This sets the issue property. The domain name of a single certificate authority (e.g. sectigo.com) authorized to issue certificates for the domain.
     • Report incident by IODEF report This sets the iodef property. Specifies a URL (https://example.com) or email address (mailto:admin@example.com) a certificate authority may report policy violations. Not all certificate authorities support this tag, so there is no guarantee that all certificate issuances will be reported.
   • value: The value associated with the chosen property tag.

     You do not need to add the domain name in the Host field.

5. Click the Add Record button to save.

After clicking the Add Record button, the propagation for the new record begins. This can take up to 6 hours before the new record updates online.

Checking the CAA record via SSH

The dig command is often used to query DNS records. Since the CAA record is a new type of record, you must also add type257 when running the command. For example:

[server]$ dig example.com type257

Links

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNS_Certification_Authority_Authorization
• https://support.dnsimple.com/articles/caa-record/
• https://letsencrypt.org/docs/caa/

DKIM records are a way of 'signing' emails to prove they came from you, using DKIM keys publicly listed in your domain's DNS. They are added as TXT records with a specific format.

For more information on the format of DKIM records, please visit the following article:

• DKIM records

For details on how to set up custom/vanity nameservers, please visit the following article.

• Changing your nameservers at DreamHost

You can also add a Unique DreamHost IPv4 or IPv6 record to your domain. View the following articles for further details.

• Unique IP overview
• Add or remove a Unique IP
• IPv6

• As with all changes to DNS, these records need time to update online. You may find that it may take a few hours for things to start functioning. You can Flush the DNS to see if this speeds up the propagation process, but there are no guarantees this will help. You can read instructions on flushing the DNS here:
• Flush DNS

• DNS changes can take up to 6 hours to resolve. If your nameservers are pointing to DreamHost and the services set up for the record created are not active within this time, you may contact support for assistance at Contact Support.