Creating a DNS Alias Record

 Last reviewed: February 2, 1998
Article ID: Q168322
The information in this article applies to:
  • Microsoft Windows NT Server version 4.0

SUMMARY

This explains why a Domain Name Service (DNS) Alias record is needed, and how to create it.

MORE INFORMATION

Sometimes it is useful to be able to access a server (or any host) by using a name other than its DNS host name.

For example, you have an Application Server whose DNS configuration is as follows: 

   Host Name   Domain Name
   ---------   -------------
   myserver    mydomain.com
You have also setup your server as a WWW server so Internet or Intranet browsers can access Web pages from it. You want people to access your Web server by specifying www.mydomain.com as its name instead of myserver.mydomain.com.

To accomplish this, an alias (or canonical name) record needs to be added to your DNS server.

The DNS server should already have the following record under the mydomain.com zone (IPAddress should be the IP address of your server): 

   Myserver   A   <IPAddress>
The following record should be added to the mydomain.com zone: 

   www   CNAME   myserver.mydomain.com
When a DNS server looks up a name and finds a CNAME record, it replaces the name with the canonical name, and looks up the new name, in this case, www.mydomain.com.

NOTE: It is possible to have several aliases for a single host. Please note that it is suggested that each alias refer to the original A record, though, and not to one of the CNAME records for the host. This will provide a more direct route to resolving the host name rather than forcing the DNS Server to resolve multiple CNAME records.

Additional query words: canonical
Keywords : nthowto ntnetserv NTSrv nttcp kbnetwork
Version : WinNT:4.0
Platform : winnt
Issue type : kbhowto

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Last reviewed: February 2, 1998
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