What is DNS? #

DNS stands for ‘Domain Name System’. While it sounds technical, it’s actually quite simple. DNS allows your browser (e.g., Firefox or Chrome) or mail client (e.g., Outlook or Mac Mail) to find websites and services on the internet.

Computers love numbers, but humans prefer names. It’s far easier to remember someone in your iPhone’s phonebook as John Doe rather than his number 07999333456. DNS is the Internet’s version of this.

You’ve probably heard of IP addresses, such as 192.168.100.2 or 4.4.4.4. They’re the ‘phone numbers’ of the internet. Conversely, website addresses like www.google.com or email addresses like john.doe@hotmail.com are easier for humans to remember. DNS is the ‘phonebook’ of the internet, matching domain names to the actual IP addresses of the servers on the Internet.

What DNS Records Can I Manage in StackCP? #

If you register (or transfer) your domain names with StackCP, we’ll take care of all the DNS you need for your website and email. However, if you need to add, modify, or remove any DNS records, you can do this through the StackCP control panel.

There are many types of DNS records, but not all are relevant to hosting. Below is an explanation of each record type you can manage for your StackCP domains.

‘A’ Records #

A records allow a DNS name (e.g., www.stackcp.com) to be pointed to one or more IPv4 addresses. These are the most common kinds of records. The DNS name “www.stackcp.com” is an A record and it points to 185.151.28.20, an IPv4 address.

‘CNAME’ Records #

CNAME stands for “canonical name” and you can only have one of these per name in a DNS zone. A CNAME record doesn’t point to an IP address but points to another DNS name. It’s a handy way of pointing multiple names to one place, managing just one set of IP addresses. For example, ‘webbuilder.stackcp.com’ points to ‘builder.stackcp.com’, which is an A record pointing to 185.151.28.40.

Note: You can’t add a CNAME for the root domain. A CNAME can only be added for a subdomain like ‘subdomain.example.com’ but not for ‘example.com’.

‘MX’ Records #

MX stands for ‘mail exchanger’. It tells a ‘sending’ mail server how to find the ‘receiving’ mail server, given in order of priority, with the lowest numbers given the highest priority. The MX record for stackcp.com is ‘mx.stackmail.com’.

‘TXT’ Records #

TXT (or text) records are not generally used to locate servers on the internet but to prove to external systems that the domain is yours. They can also specify that mail from certain hosts can originate from that domain (SPF records). It’s unlikely you’ll need to manually create a TXT record, but we offer the flexibility just in case.

‘SRV’ Records #

SRV (or service) records are similar to A, CNAME, and MX records in that they are used to look up the IP addresses of servers on the Internet, but they also include port and protocol information. It’s very unlikely you’ll need to modify these for your StackCP hosting, but we provide the facility in case you want to operate your own offsite services under your StackCP-hosted domains.