rickert@mp.cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert) (02/06/91)
In article <2836@bimacs.BITNET> yedidya@bimacs.BITNET (Yedidya Israel) writes: >Consider the following defintions for domainnames math.purdue.edu and >cs.cms.edu. > >[bimacs] yedidya 137 : host -a math.purdue.edu. >[ ... ] >math.purdue.edu 86333 IN CNAME gauss.math.purdue.edu >[ ... ] > >[bimacs] yedidya 114 : host -a cs.cmu.edu. >[ ... ] >cs.cmu.edu 110243 IN A 128.2.222.173 >[ ... ] > >1) Is it legal to define my domain name to be A/CNAME/MX ? Which is >better ? > I am not sure that legality is involved. The effect of a CNAME record is that the real name is actually substituted for the orignal name. Providing an A-record allows some software to access the name without translation of the name. Many domains are set up with several different names having the same A-record. It helps deal with obsolete email software which cannot read MX records. It enables hosts with such software to still find you. There are also times when a host changes name and cannot use a CNAME record for aliasing because it wants to retain an MX record or SOA record under the old name. An A-record is thus provided so that the host is still accessible under the old name. >2) Is it legal to have more that one A record for one host ? If you have more than one network interface you have multiple addresses, so you should have multiple A-records. -- =*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*= Neil W. Rickert, Computer Science <rickert@cs.niu.edu> Northern Illinois Univ. DeKalb, IL 60115 +1-815-753-6940