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  1. #1

    Can somebody help me understand A records, MX records, etc, for hosting domains?

    I'm honestly having trouble figuring this all out. What are A records and how are they used? Similarly, what are MX records and how are they used?

    Also- another question: Do these records go in conjunction with DNS name servers? Can I point my domain to one server's DNS, while using A records and MX records for another server? Does that mean my domain would be attached to two different servers?

    Can somebody teach me these concepts like I'm a five year-old?

    Thanks!

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Posts
    5,079
    A DNS server is a server that someone can consult for DNS information about your domain.

    You can log into your domain registrar's control panel, and set the nameservers for your domain. For example, you might set them to ns1.yourhost.com and ns2.yourhost.com. If someone wants to get authoritative DNS information about your domain, those entries tell them which DNS servers they should consult. If they were to ask ns1.yourhost.com or ns2.yourhost.com for DNS records for your domain, those DNS servers would know the most up to date answers.

    One common DNS record you'd ask for is the A record. This tells someone the IPv4 address for any given domain - be that your main domain (example.com), or what we term a subdomain (videos.example.com). If someone wants to browse your website, they'll need to visit the server where your website is hosted and ask it for a copy of your website. The A record tells them the IPv4 address of the server - it makes sure people can find your website where it's actually hosted.

    Another type of DNS record is the MX record. This is used not for browsing your website, but for delivering email to addresses on your domain (bob@example.com). The sending mail server needs to know which mail server receives email for your domain, so they ask an authoritative DNS server for the MX record for example.com. This doesn't give them an IP address, but a fully qualified domain name, such as mail.example.com, and a priority (which is a number, such as 0, or 5, or ...). Sometimes, several MX records are returned, because some mail systems have multiple servers capable of receiving your email, in case any one of them was down. In those cases, the sending mail server should try the ones with the lowest priority first.

    There are lots of other types of DNS records - AAAA, PTR, CNAME, TXT and others. But those are the two you asked about.

    So, yes - you can use one company to host your website (as determined by your A record), another to receive your email (as determined by your MX record), and yet another for your DNS (as determined by your nameservers). You might use CloudFlare for DNS, a web host for your website, and Google Apps for your email - for example.
    Not as active on WHT as I used to be, but still drop in and receive email notifications from here.
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  3. #3
    Join Date
    Apr 2010
    Location
    Dhaka, Bangladesh
    Posts
    77
    You may read Google's article of DNS basics https://support.google.com/a/answer/48090?hl=en It will give you better knowledge about DNS.

  4. #4
    Hi,

    The A record is the dns record to which the domain points to. i.e it points to the server where the domain's webfiles are present. The A record's value is the ip address of the server where the webfiles of the domain resides.

    The MX records shows which mail server it manages.

    Please note that these records are modified in the nameservers of the domain that points as name servers hold the dns records of the domain.

    You can point the nameservers of the domain to the one you wish, but you then need to change the DNS records (A, MX) there for the site to use the correct A records and MX records.
    Techie at Your Service
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  5. #5
    Join Date
    Nov 2015
    Posts
    6
    You can point your domain to different servers. Just add different A records. For example server1.yourdomain.com can point to one IP and server2.yourdomain.com to another.

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