What (who) is canonical name - definition
TYPE OF RESOURCE RECORD IN THE DOMAIN NAME SYSTEM
Canonical name; Cname; CNAME; Cname record; DNAME; DNAME record; Canonical domain name; Canonical Name record; Canonical name record; CName Record; Domain name alias; DNAME records; ANAME
canonical name
(CNAME) A host's official name as opposed to an alias. The
official name is the first hostname listed for its {Internet
address} in the hostname database, /etc/hosts or the
Network Information Service (NIS) map hosts.byaddr ("hosts"
for short). A host with multiple network interfaces may have
more than one Internet address, each with its own canonical
name (and zero or more aliases).
You can find a host's canonical name using nslookup if you
say
set querytype=CNAME
and then type a hostname.
(1994-11-29)
CNAME record
A Canonical Name record (abbreviated as CNAME record) is a type of resource record in the Domain Name System (DNS) that maps one domain name (an alias) to another (the canonical name).
CNAME
<networking> The canonical name query type for {Domain Name
System}. This query asks a DNS server for a host's
official hostname.
(1994-12-22)
Wikipedia
CNAME record
A Canonical Name (CNAME) record is a type of resource record in the Domain Name System (DNS) that maps one domain name (an alias) to another (the canonical name).
This can prove convenient when running multiple services (like an FTP server and a web server, each running on different ports) from a single IP address. One can, for example, use CNAME records to point ftp.example.com and www.example.com to the DNS entry for example.com, which in turn has an A record which points to the IP address. Then, if the IP address ever changes, one only has to record the change in one place within the network: in the DNS A record for example.com.
CNAME records must always point to another domain name, never directly to an IP address.
