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CNAME – canonical name

Vangie Beal
Last Updated May 24, 2021 7:38 am

(s -n m) Short for canonical name, also referred to as a CNAME record, a record in a DNS database that indicates the true, or canonical, host name of a computer that its aliases are associated with. A computer hosting a Web site must have an IP address in order to be connected to the World Wide Web. The DNS resolves the computer s domain name to its IP address, but sometimes more than one domain name resolves to the same IP address, and this is where the CNAME is useful. A machine can have an unlimited number of CNAME aliases, but a separate CNAME record must be in the database for each alias.

Usage Note: While CNAME is short for canonical name, use of the abbreviated term implies that one is referring to the canonical name record, not simply the canonical name.