Overview of DNS
Once you have registered your domain name, you can go about setting it up. To do this you will need to make changes to the Domain Name System which is the internets way of translating the parts of a domain name into various IP addresses.
This guide to DNS is only an overview and you will most likely need to seek technical advise before making changes. Please be aware that if you make mistakes, you could stop your email and website from working until it has been corrected. You may also need to obtain setting and information from your hosting company or web design agency in order to make these changes.
Configuring your DNS
When you log into your control panel to manage your domain name you should see an option to "Configure DNS settings" or "Manage DNS settings". Once you have accessed this section you will have options to setup and modify the various sections of the DNS.
The following overview explains what the main sections of DNS are:
A record - Address record - these are used to point the sub domains (the part before your domain name) to various computers on the internet. For example, www.adomain.com would use an 'A record' to point them at the IP address of the server.
CNAME record - Canonical name record - this is effectively an alias where you can point a sub domain to another sub domain. For example, you may setup news.adomain.com to point at the same ip address as www.adomain.com . In this example, if in the future you need to change the ip address for both of these hosts, you would only need to modify the www 'A record'.
MX record - This defines the list of email servers that can accept mail for your domain. You can have unlimited MX records setup but you should always have at least 2 of these configured for each domain. Each MX record has a priority associated with it which defines which order they are referenced. the lower the number, the higher the priority. Most people will choose to use the same company to host their email as they do for their web hosting, however, using these settings, you can opt to use other email providers such as google email.
To summarise, in order to ensure that your email and web site work, you must ensure that you have at least one 'A record which points your www. record at your servers ip address and also the two MX records.
Name Servers
You may see an option within the control panel which allows you to change your nameservers. This effectively allows you to change where the DNS settings are held and managed. You should not need to do change these unless you intend to use a third parties DNS server or are transferring your domain to a new registrar.
Tips for domain configuration
- When you make changes to your domain's DNS, there is normally a period of time before all the machines on the internet are made aware. Due to this, it can take anywhere from a couple of minutes up to 48 hours before you can see the changes. Due to this, always allow for downtime and try to make changes at quiet times for your business (eg, over weekends or holiday periods).
- If you would like to use your web site without the www. part
(eg, http://adomain.com instead of http://www.adomain.com)
then you can normally add an 'A record' which points @ to your IP address.