dns question.

[atomiser]

say you have a website at www.example.com, which is also accessible via just example.com. i'm assuming this is achieved via dns, but i don't know what the record is called that you would create? i assume it's essentially an a record, but more of a wildcard default for the domain? if i was creating this on a windows dns server, please could someone enlighten me as to the correct terminology here. thanks in advance.

 

[XOR != OR]

Without knowing more about what you are trying to accomplish, you'd set up the www host of example.com to be a cname to example.com.

 

[C7J0yc3]

Without knowing more about what you are trying to accomplish, you'd set up the www host of example.com to be a cname to example.com.

This is how most DNS providers set up your domain.

For instance my domains from GoDaddy are setup so that

@=example.com points to 1.2.3.4
www points to @
mail points to @
ftp points to @

 

[obrith]

Typically you would use an A record to create this alias. Some services/people will use CNAME as an alternative (you should instead let Apache handle this and use an A record in most cases).

Apache also needs to be aware of the alias on the webserver(s).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_DNS_record_types

 

[atomiser]

So if I were configuring a Windows DNS Server and I had a zone called example.com, what record within the zone do I need to create to point it at 1.2.3.4 such that I can create a CNAME of said record for www? I.e. How do I create the @ record? (I'm only used to seeing things like A, MX, CNAME, PTR, SPF, etc). Thanks.

edit: Sussed it, creating a 'blank' A record pointing to 1.2.3.4 worked, and allowed me to create the www CNAME record too. Thanks everyone.