DNS Records Explained: A, CNAME, MX, TXT and When to Use Each

DNS records look cryptic until you know what each type is actually for. Here's a plain-language guide to the ones you'll actually use, all supported in RepublicNodes' DNS Hosting.

A and AAAA — "this name points to this address"

An A record points a name at an IPv4 address (e.g. 203.0.113.10). An AAAA record does the same for IPv6. This is the most common record type — it's what makes yourdomain.com resolve to your server's actual IP.

You can have more than one A record for the same name (round-robin), which some setups use for basic load distribution across multiple servers.

CNAME — "this name is really that name"

A CNAME record aliases one hostname to another, e.g. www.yourdomain.com → yourdomain.com. Whatever the target resolves to, the alias follows. One rule to remember: a CNAME can never coexist with other records on the same name, and should never be used on the bare domain (the "zone apex") — use an A/AAAA record there instead.

MX — "send mail here"

An MX record tells the world which mail server handles email for your domain, with a priority number (lower = preferred). If you're using RepublicNodes Mailbox Hosting, this is the record that makes mail actually arrive in your inbox instead of bouncing.

TXT — free-form, mostly for verification

TXT records hold arbitrary text. In practice they're almost always used for two things: domain ownership verification (Google Search Console, Microsoft 365, etc. ask you to add a specific TXT value) and email authentication — SPF (v=spf1 mx ~all) and DKIM, which tell receiving mail servers your mail is legitimate and not spoofed.

SRV — "this service lives at this host and port"

SRV records point at a specific host and port for a named service (priority, weight, port, target) — commonly used by VoIP, XMPP, and some game server discovery systems.

CAA — "only these certificate authorities may issue for us"

A CAA record restricts which Certificate Authorities are allowed to issue SSL certificates for your domain — a small but real security hardening step most sites skip. Example: 0 issue "letsencrypt.org" only allows Let's Encrypt to issue certs for you.

The less common ones: NAPTR, SSHFP, TLSA, LOC, HINFO

These show up in more specialized setups: SSHFP publishes your SSH host key fingerprint so clients can verify it via DNS; TLSA does something similar for TLS certificates (DANE); NAPTR is used in VoIP/SIP service discovery; LOC publishes geographic coordinates; HINFO is a legacy host-info record rarely used today. All are available if you need them.

Ready to set these up? Every record type above is manageable directly from your DNS Hosting dashboard — add, edit, or remove any of them in a few clicks.