DNS/BIND resource record: Address (A) record

Contributed by qmchenry January 4, 2004  
Tagged: BIND and DNS

The address record (A record) maps a hostname and fully qualified domain name with an IP address.

To add the host chef with IP address 192.168.5.100 to the domain tech-recipes.com. in the zone file for tech-recipes.com, use the following format:

chef.tech-recipes.com. IN A 192.168.5.100

Please note the period following the domain name in the record. This is critical beacuse it tells BIND that the domain name is attached and complete (fully qualified). Without this period, BIND will add the domain name associated with the zone file to the end of this to create a record for chef.tech-recipes.com.tech-recipes.com. which is not what we want.

Because of this behavior, it is possible to use shorthand:

chef IN A 192.168.5.100

Whenever you add an address record (what could be called a forward lookup record) it is usually appropriate to add a this recipe describes creating a zone file.