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Incubator Q&A

Welcome to the staging ground for new communities! Each proposal has a description in the "Descriptions" category and a body of questions and answers in "Incubator Q&A". You can ask questions (and get answers, we hope!) right away, and start new proposals.

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Incubator Q&A Why won't setting a CNAME DNS record for the domain apex work?

DNS specifications say that CNAME records can't co-exist with other records at the same level. That precludes using a CNAME at the apex because there are other record types that have to be attache...

posted 1y ago by Stephen Ostermiller‭

Answer
#1: Initial revision by user avatar Stephen Ostermiller‭ · 2023-07-20T12:09:42Z (over 1 year ago)
DNS specifications say that `CNAME` records can't co-exist with other records at the same level.  That precludes using a `CNAME` at the apex because there are other record types that have to be attached to the apex.

Most DNS providers won't let you put a `CNAME` at the apex because their DNS software isn't compatible with it.  Some providers may let you do it, but other things (like email delivery) may subtly break.

An `A` record that points your domain apex to an IP address works at the domain apex.  You should prefer to use an `A` record if you can point to an IP address.

Some DNS hosts (like Namecheap and Route 53) have a workaround to point the domain apex to some other domain. You can specify an `ALIAS` or `ANAME` record type and put a name into it just like a `CNAME`.  These providers periodically look up the IP address from that name and serve it as an `A` record. You can think of it as a proxied `A` record.  Unfortunately not all DNS providers have support for this.