Cnames and "virtual name based hosting"

[Jeff Lasman]

On Wednesday 07 April 2004 02:09 am, fih wrote:

> Like this:
>
> unixbox.domain.com. IN A 1.1.1.1
>
> www.customer1.com. IN CNAME unixbox.domain.com.
> www.customer2.com. IN CNAME unixbox.domain.com.
> www.customer3.com. IN VNAME unixbox.domain.com.

You're leaving a lot out, which is what caused my confusion in our 
offlist correspondence.

In a zonefile for customer1.com you must use an A record for 
customer1.com.  If www.customer1.com is at the same IP# as 
customer1.com, then using a CNAME to point it to customer1.com, would 
be legal, reasonable, and intuitive, though it would require an extra 
nameserver or resolver lookup, and changing multiple A records in a 
zonefile is not really any harder to do than changing one, so I'd just 
use an A record.

But if www.customer1.com is at a different domain, for example 
unixbox.domain.com, then there's no reason not to use the A record as 
you've shown; it's both good management and intuitive.

Jeff
-- 
Jeff Lasman, nobaloney.net, P. O. Box 52672, Riverside, CA  92517 US
Professional Internet Services & Support / Consulting / Colocation
Our blists address used on lists is for list email only
Phone +1 909 324-9706, or see: "http://www.nobaloney.net/contactus.html"