What are the most common types of DNS record?
- A record – The record that holds the IP address of a domain. Learn more about the A record.
- AAAA record – The record that contains the IPv6 address for a domain (as opposed to A records, which list the IPv4 address). Learn more about the AAAA record.
- CNAME record – Forwards one domain or subdomain to another domain, does NOT provide an IP address. Learn more about the CNAME record.
- MX record – Directs mail to an email server. Learn more about the MX record.
- TXT record – Lets an admin store text notes in the record. These records are often used for email security. Learn more about the TXT record.
- NS record – Stores the name server for a DNS entry. Learn more about the NS record.
- SOA record – Stores admin information about a domain. Learn more about the SOA record.
- SRV record – Specifies a port for specific services. Learn more about the SRV record.
- PTR record – Provides a domain name in reverse-lookups. Learn more about the PTR record.
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What are some of the less commonly used DNS records?
- AFSDB record – This record is used for clients of the Andrew File System (AFS) developed by Carnegie Melon. The AFSDB record functions to find other AFS cells.
- APL record – The ‘address prefix list’ is an experiment record that specifies lists of address ranges.
- CAA record – This is the ‘certification authority authorization’ record, it allows domain owners state which certificate authorities can issue certificates for that domain. If no CAA record exists, then anyone can issue a certificate for the domain. These records are also inherited by subdomains.
- DNSKEY record – The ‘DNS Key Record’ contains a public key used to verify Domain Name System Security Extension (DNSSEC) signatures.
- CDNSKEY record – This is a child copy of the DNSKEY record, meant to be transferred to a parent.
- CERT record – The ‘certificate record’ stores public key certificates.
- DCHID record – The ‘DHCP Identifier’ stores info for the Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP), a standardized network protocol used on IP networks.
- DNAME record – The ‘delegation name’ record creates a domain alias, just like CNAME, but this alias will redirect all subdomains as well. For instance if the owner of ‘example.com’ bought the domain ‘website.net’ and gave it a DNAME record that points to ‘example.com’, then that pointer would also extend to ‘blog.website.net’ and any other subdomains.
- HIP record – This record uses ‘Host identity protocol’, a way to separate the roles of an IP address; this record is used most often in mobile computing.
- IPSECKEY record – The ‘IPSEC key’ record works with the Internet Protocol Security (IPSEC), an end-to-end security protocol framework and part of the Internet Protocol Suite (TCP/IP).
- LOC record – The ‘location’ record contains geographical information for a domain in the form of longitude and latitude coordinates.
- NAPTR record – The ‘name authority pointer’ record can be combined with an SRV record to dynamically create URI’s to point to based on a regular expression.
- NSEC record – The ‘next secure record’ is part of DNSSEC, and it’s used to prove that a requested DNS resource record does not exist.
- RRSIG record – The ‘resource record signature’ is a record to store digital signatures used to authenticate records in accordance with DNSSEC.
- RP record – This is the ‘responsible person’ record and it stores the email address of the person responsible for the domain.
- SSHFP record – This record stores the ‘SSH public key fingerprints’; SSH stands for Secure Shell and it’s a cryptographic networking protocol for secure communication over an unsecure network.