Understanding DNS in Lightsail

An apex domain, also known as a root domain, is a domain that does not contain a subdomain part. An example of an apex domain is example.com. Whereas, subdomain examples are www.example.com and blog.example.com. These are subdomains because they contain the www and blog subdomain parts respectively.

DNS routes easy-to-remember domain names, such as example.com, to the IP addresses of web servers.

For more information, see Domain Name System on Wikipedia.

A DNS record is a mapping parameter. It tells the DNS server which IP address or hostname a domain or subdomain is associated with.

For more information, see List of DNS record types on Wikipedia.

A DNS zone is a container that holds information about how you want to route traffic on the internet for a specific domain, such as example.com, and its subdomains, such as blog.example.com.

For more information, see DNS zone on Wikipedia.

A domain name registrar, also known as a domain name provider, is a company or organization that manages the assignment of domain names. You can purchase a domain or manage an existing domain using Lightsail, Amazon Route 53 or any other domain name registrar.

For more information, see Domain name registrar on Wikipedia.

A name server routes traffic to your domain. In Lightsail, the name server is an AWS instance that runs a network service to help translate easy-to-remember domain names to IP addresses. Lightsail provides several AWS name server options (e.g., ns-NN.awsdns-NN.com) to route traffic to your domain. You can choose from among these AWS name servers when you change your domain using a domain registrar.

For more information, see Name server on Wikipedia.

A subdomain is anything in the domain hierarchy, other than the root domain, that is part of the larger domain. For example, blog is the subdomain part of the blog.example.com subdomain.

For more information, see Subdomain on Wikipedia.

TTL dictates the lifespan of a DNS record on local resolving name servers; for example, a shorter time means less time to wait until the changes go into effect. TTL cannot be configured in the Lightsail DNS zone. Instead, all Lightsail DNS records default to a TTL of 60 seconds.

For more information, see Time to live on Wikipedia.

A wildcard DNS record matches requests for non-existent domain names. A wildcard DNS record is specified by using the asterisk symbol (*) as the leftmost part of a domain name, such as *.example.com or *example.com.

An A record maps a domain, such as example.com, or a subdomain, such as blog.example.com, to a web server’s IP address.

For example, in the Lightsail DNS zone, you want to direct web traffic for example.com (the apex of the domain) to your instance. You would create an A record, enter an @ symbol into the Subdomain text box, and enter the IP address of your web server into the Resolves to address text box.

For more information about the A record, see List of DNS record types on Wikipedia.

An AAAA record maps a domain, such as example.com, or a subdomain, such as blog.example.com, to a web server’s IPv6 address.

For example, in the Lightsail DNS zone, you want to direct web traffic for example.com (the apex of the domain) to your instance over the IPv6 protocol. You would create an AAAA record, enter an @ symbol into the Subdomain text box, and enter the IP address of your web server into the Resolves to address text box.

For more information about the AAAA record, see the Domain Name System for IPv6 on Wikipedia.

A CNAME record maps an alias or subdomain, such as blog.example.com, to another domain or subdomain.

For example, in the Lightsail DNS zone, you want to direct web traffic for www.example.com to example.com. You would create an alias CNAME record for www with a "resolves to" address of example.com.

For more information, see CNAME Record on Wikipedia.

An MX record maps a subdomain, such as mail.example.com, to an email server address with values for priority when multiple servers are defined.

For example, in the Lightsail DNS zone you want to direct mail for mail.example.com to the 10 inbound-smtp.us-west-2.amazonaws.com Amazon WorkMail server. You would create an MX record with a subdomain of example.com, a priority of 10, and a "resolves to" address of inbound-smtp.us-west-2.amazonaws.com.

For more information, see MX Record on Wikipedia.

An NS record delegates a subdomain, such as test.example.com, to a name server, such as ns-NN.awsdns-NN.com.

For more information, see Name server on Wikipedia.

An SRV record maps a subdomain, such as service.example.com, to a service address with values for priority, weight, and port number. Telephony or instant messaging are a couple of the services typically associated with SRV records.

For example, in the Lightsail DNS zone, you want to direct traffic for service.example.com to 1 10 5269 xmpp-server.example.com. You would create an SRV record with a priority of 1, a weight of 10, a port number of 5269, and a "maps to" address of xmpp-server.example.com.

For more information, see SRV Record on Wikipedia.

A TXT record maps a subdomain to plaintext. You create TXT records to confirm ownership of your domain to a service provider.

For example, in the Lightsail DNS zone, you want to respond with 23223a30-7f1d-4sx7-84fb-31bdes7csdbb when the _amazonchime.example.com hostname is queried. You would create a TXT record with a subdomain value of _amazonchime and a "responds with" value of 23223a30-7f1d-4sx7-84fb-31bdes7csdbb.

For more information, see TXT Record on Wikipedia.