CNAME

[Jim Reid]

>>>>> "Glenn" == Glenn Hocking <ghock at publishmedia.com> writes:

    Glenn> I wish to use CNAME in my zone files to point to my main
    Glenn> virtual web server however it appears that I can not use a
    Glenn> CNAME for the base domain name as I get the following
    Glenn> error,

Correct. If a name exists as a CNAME it cannot exist as any other
record type. See Section 3.6.2 of RFC1034. Since your the name of your
zone has a SOA record and at least one NS record, it cannot also have
a CNAME. BTW, this rule has been relaxed a little for DNSSEC: a CNAME
can also have SIG, KEY and NXT records.

    Glenn> If I change the first CNAME to an A record with the IP
    Glenn> address of sitegeneral.com it all works fine but I don't
    Glenn> wish to 'hard code' the IP address.  Is there any correct
    Glenn> way to acheive this?

The way you don't want to do this is the only way that works. Either
you have an A record for your domain name or else you can't have a
lookup of your domain name return the address of its web server.