For Business
DNS (Domain Name System) is responsible for pointing a domain name to a host on the internet. When typing a web address into a browser, a DNS request is sent to find the IP address of the web server it's hosted on, they also work in this way to identify email addresse.
The DNS records for a domain name are held on a Name Server (NS), these are maintained by various 3rd parties.
There are also "authoritative" NS, where DNS records are kept for a domain name. Usually, the authoritative NS for your domain name is looked after by your domain hosting company. These authoritative NS are then checked by "recursive" NS (Such as an ISPs) to find out information for that domain name.
A Fully Qualified Domain Name (FQDN) refers to an absolute domain name (the domain name in full). It contains information about all the domain levels, such as the top level domain (TLD) or root zone. A FQDN is represented when a full hostname with all labels (components) of a domain name is present, including a trailing dot (.)
For example: "zen.co.uk".
As DNS records can be configured in various ways for different personal and business needs, we provide the tools for our customers to manage their own DNS records.
A records are used to link names to IP addresses. This allows a request for a website such as www.zen.co.uk to be directed to a server on the Internet.
MX records are used by mail servers to direct where to deliver E-mail by pointing to an A or CNAME record, then to the IP address of the E-mail server for the domain. MX records cannot be pointed directly to IP addresses.
CNAME records provide an alias functionality to DNS. They can be pointed to A records or other CNAME records.
SRV records are specifications of data in the Domain Name System defining the location, i.e. the hostname and port number, of servers for specified services.
The TXT record is used to define text information records which may be used to validate legitimate email sources from a domain.
A LOC record is a means for providing geographic location to a domain name.
It contains WGS84 Latitude, Longitude and Altitude information with host/subnet physical size and location accuracy.
A Time To Live (TTL) is a specification of data in the Domain Name defining the maximum amount of time a DNS record should be cached before being discarded.
TTL is measured in seconds, by default this value will be set to 86400, or 24 hours, this lowers the number of queries sent
to the DNS server and improves response.
Note: As low values for TTL can cause a high load on the DNS server, changes are automatically reverted to 86400 after seven days
If encountering problems entering any records, feel free to contact our Web Hosting team.
Should you wish to request a Zone File, please email hosting@zen.co.uk.