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In short: DNS records tell the internet where your website, email and other services live. A records point to IPv4 addresses, AAAA to IPv6, CNAME aliases one name to another, MX routes email, TXT holds verification and email-security data, and TTL says how long resolvers may cache each answer. Back up the zone before changing anything: one wrong record can take the site or email offline.
A and AAAA records
An A record maps a name to an IPv4 address, an AAAA record to an IPv6 address. For the bare domain most panels use @ as the name; subdomains such as www get their own record. Example: @ A 192.0.2.10 and www A 192.0.2.10.
CNAME record
A CNAME makes one name an alias of another domain name, for example www CNAME example.com or shop CNAME myshop.platform.com. The target must be a domain name, never an IP address, and the bare domain (@) cannot be a CNAME.
MX record
MX records say which mail server receives email for the domain. Each has a priority; the lowest number is tried first. Use exactly the target and priority your email provider gives you, for example @ MX 10 mail.example.com. The MX target itself must be a name with an A record, not a CNAME.
TXT record
TXT records carry text used for domain verification (Google, Microsoft, Facebook) and email security: the SPF policy, DKIM public keys and the DMARC policy. A domain may have only one SPF record; add new senders inside the existing v=spf1 record instead of creating a second one. See the SPF, DKIM and DMARC guide.
NS record
NS records name the servers that are authoritative for the zone. They are set at the registrar and tell the world which DNS servers to ask; changing them moves the whole zone to another provider.
What TTL means
TTL (time to live, in seconds) tells resolvers how long they may cache an answer. A TTL of 3600 means a change can take up to an hour to be seen everywhere. Lower the TTL to 300 a day before a planned migration, and raise it again afterwards; a low TTL means more queries to your DNS servers.
Checklist before a change
- Export or screenshot the current records.
- Verify the new server's IP address.
- Compare MX, SPF and DKIM with what the email provider expects.
- Plan the switch instead of deleting the old record right away.
- After the change, query from different networks or with our DNS lookup tool, which checks four resolvers.
Propagation
DNS changes are not pushed to the whole internet at once; each resolver keeps the old answer until its cached TTL expires. For that reason, do not switch off the old server immediately after moving a site; keep it running until the new records are seen everywhere.
On Fiberserver hosting you edit these records in cPanel's Zone Editor; for domains registered with us, in the client area.
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