DNS Records Demystified: Understanding A, AAAA, and CNAME Records

Have you ever wondered how your computer knows where to find a website when you type its address into your browser? The answer is DNS, or Domain Name System. DNS is like a phone book for the internet. It translates website addresses into IP addresses, which are numerical labels assigned to devices on a computer network.

There are several types of DNS records that help with this process, including A, AAAA, and CNAME records. An A record points a domain name to an IPv4 address, which is an older type of IP address. An AAAA record points a domain name to an IPv6 address, which is a newer type of IP address that allows for more unique addresses. A CNAME record points a hostname to another hostname or FQDN (Fully Qualified Domain Name), which is the complete domain name for a specific computer or host.

For example, let’s say you have a website called?mywebsite.com. When someone types?mywebsite.com?into their browser, their computer uses DNS to look up the IP address associated with that domain name using an A or AAAA record. If your website’s server has an IPv4 address of?203.0.113.0, you would create an A record that points?mywebsite.com?to?203.0.113.0. If your website’s server has an IPv6 address of?2001:db8::1, you would create an AAAA record that points?mywebsite.com?to?2001:db8::1.

Now let’s say you also have a blog on your website, located at?blog.mywebsite.com. Instead of creating a separate A or AAAA record for the blog, you could create a CNAME record that points?blog.mywebsite.com?to?mywebsite.com. This tells anyone visiting?blog.mywebsite.com?to use the same IP address as?mywebsite.com.

And that’s the difference between A, AAAA, and CNAME records! We hope this post has helped demystify these important DNS concepts for you.