Zone Records

On Compute Cloud@Customer,

Creating a DNS zone is only the beginning of working with DNS. The zone is essentially empty when created, except for a basic Start of Authority (SOA) and Name Server (NS) record The SOA record provides a kind of history of this DNS zone and holds information such as when it was last updated and things like that. The NS record contains the fully-qualified name of the DNS server for the zone. The NS record is very important and therefore has a high TTL, usually 24 hours (86400 seconds).

To make the name server truly useful, the zone must be rounded out and filled with the DNS records that form the basis of responses to the kinds of queries that clients make. These queries include IP addresses for parts of the domain namespace, email server details, and so on.

Creating a Zone Record

On Compute Cloud@Customer, you can create a DNS zone record.

The RDATA field is where the content of the zone record is entered. The format of the information varies according to the type of record you are creating. However, the data must be in one of the formats that DNS understands. For example, an A-type zone record RDATA is an IP address, and an MX record contains information on how to route email. Because of the authoritative nature of the zone records within a zone, RDATA is not editable. If DNS information in a zone changes, then the old record must be deleted and a new record created.

Editing a Zone Record

On Compute Cloud@Customer, you can update a DNS zone record.

There is no "edit record" command. You can update a group of records, and if one of the records in the list is the same except for the rdata for example, in effect you have updated the record.

Deleting a Zone Record

On Compute Cloud@Customer, you can delete many, but not all DNS zone records. The initial SOA and NS records created by default when the zone is created can't be deleted.