2.6 Making the Domain Name of Your Zone Point to Your Web Server

2.6.1 Problem

You want the domain name of your zone to point to your web server.

2.6.2 Solution

Add an A record to the domain name of your zone pointing to the IP address of your web server:

foo.example.    IN    A    10.0.0.1

2.6.3 Discussion

Adding such an A record lets people specify just http://foo.example/ (leaving out the leading "www") when accessing your web site. Several popular web sites publish their URLs in this form, including CNN.

Many people try to solve this problem by adding a CNAME record to the domain name of the zone, rather than an A record:

foo.example.    IN    CNAME    www.foo.example.

This, however, is illegal because it violates the dictum that an alias have no records other than a CNAME record associated with it.

If you have multiple web servers, you can add multiple A records for the domain name of your zone:

foo.example.    IN    A    10.0.0.1
foo.example.    IN    A    10.0.0.2
foo.example.    IN    A    10.0.0.3

The records are given out in round robin order, by default, as described in Section 2.8.

2.6.4 See Also

Section 2.4 for more information on CNAME records, Section 2.7 for pointing a domain name at a particular URL, not just a particular web server, and Section 2.8, for a description of round robin.