The RFC or the reason why you can not create CNAME record for the "root record"

[Ketil Froyn]

On Fri, 2004-03-26 at 16:41, list3 at wwwcrazy.com wrote:
> Why can you not create a CNAME record for the "root record".
> I'm not sure if I'm using the correct terminology.
> But basically I want to know why this command does not work:
> update add example.com. 10 IN CNAME www.mysecondexample.com.

The problem is that a CNAME requires that no other records exist for the
same name. For example.com to be delegated to you, NS records must
exist, and therefore the CNAME requirement is broken. From RFC1034
section 3.6.2:

   If a CNAME RR is present at a node, no other data should be
   present; this ensures that the data for a canonical name and its
   aliases cannot be different.

Ketil