Hosting FAQ’s - All questions answered below are answered by the hosts themselves

Answer 3)The Domain Name System [DNS] is a distributed database, arranged hierarchically, containing records for domain
names. The DNS system\'s main aim is to match a domain name to an IP Address. In order to fulfill this role,
the DNS Server contains Records [called Resource Records] in a Zone File, which contains the domain name and
IP address mappings for computers contained within that Zone. All Resource Records have a TTL [Time To Live],
specifying the number of seconds other DNS servers and applications are allowed to cache the Record. Most Web
Hosting companies do not provide you with an interface to manage your own DNS Records and/or the ability to
select multiple providers for various Services like Web Hosting, Email Hosting, etc..

I. IPv4 Address Record [A Record]
The IPv4 Address Record is the most basic and the most important DNS Record type. They are used to translate
human friendly domain names such as yourdomainname.com into IP-addresses such as 1.2.3.4 (machine friendly
numbers).

II. IPv6 Address Record [AAAA Record]
The IPv6 Address Record is the next-generation protocol for packet-switched internetworks and the Internet.
IPv4 Address Record is currently the dominant Internet Protocol version. The most important feature of IPv6
Address Record is a much larger address space than that of IPv4 Address Record. Addresses in IPv6 Address
Record are 128 bits long while those in IPv4 Address Records are 32 bits long.

III. Mail Exchanger [MX] Record
A MX Record identifies the email server(s) responsible for a domain name. When sending an email to
user@xyz.com, your email server must first look up the MX Record for xyz.com to see which email server
actually handles email for xyz.com (this could be mail.xyz.com - or someone else\'s email server like
mail.isp.com). Then it looks up the A Record for the email server to connect to its IP-address. A MX Record
has a Preference number indicating the order in which the email server should be used (only relevant when
multiple MX Records are defined for the same domain name). Email servers will attempt to deliver email to the
server with the lowest preference number first, and if unsuccessful continue with the next lowest and so on.

IV. Canonical Name [Alias / CNAME] Record
CNAME Records are domain name aliases. Often computers on the Internet have multiple functions such as Web
Server, FTP Server, Chat Server, etc. To mask this, CNAME Records can be used, to give a single computer
multiple names (aliases). Sometimes companies register multiple domain names for their brand-names but still
wish to maintain a single website. In such cases, a CNAME Record maybe used to forward traffic to their actual
website. For example, www.abc.in could be CNAMEd to www.abc.com. The most popular use of the CNAME Record
type, is to provide access to a Web Server using both the standard www.yourdomainname.com and
yourdomainname.com (without the www). This is usually done by adding a CNAME Record for the www name pointing
to the short name [while creating an A Record for the short name (without www)]. CNAME Records can also be
used when a computer or service needs to be renamed, to temporarily allow access through both the old and new
name.

This Answer was submitted by Binary Technologies - If you found it useful, please consider them as your host