Difference between A and CNAME records in DNS (AWS)

A and CNAME records used to map a host name to one or more IP address in DNS. It is very important that you should understand the differences between these two records.

This article will help to understand difference between A and CNAME records.

A Record

A record is used to points a name to specific IP Address. For example, if you want point blog.looklinux.com to server 104.27.129.39 you will need to configure like below.

blog.looklinux.com. A 104.27.129.39

CNAME Record

CNAME record is used to points a domain to another domain  instead of IP Address. The CNAME source represents an alias for the target name and inherits its entire resolution chain.

For example:

blog.looklinux.com.   CNAME   web.phpcommander.com.
web.phpcommander.com. CNAME   blog.studentvergo.com.
blog.studentvergo.com. A      104.27.129.39

Above we used blog.looklinux.com as a CNAME to web.phpcommander.com, which is also a CNAME of blog.studentvergo.com, which is an A record pointing to 104.27.129.39. This means blog.looklinux.com will be resolves to 104.27.129.39.

So, A record points  name to an IP address and CNAME record can point a name to another CNAME or an A record.

I hope this article will help to understand difference between A and CNAME records. If you have any queries and problem please comment in comment section.

Thanks:)