How to manage DNS records

Information in DNS zones is categorized and organized through a list of DNS record types, called resource records (RRs).

Each of these records has a type, an expiration time (Time to Live - TTL) and a name. Certain types of records also have type-specific data.

The available records are:

• A record: Address record, mostly used to map domain names to the IPv4 address of a specific server
• AAAA record: IPv6 Address record, returns an IPv6 address and is mostly used to map domain names to the IPv6 address of a specific server.
• CNAME record: Canonical name record, an alias of one name to another. The DNS lookup will continue by looking up the new name.
• MX record: Mail exchange record, maps a domain name to a list of one or more mail servers for that domain.
• TXT record: Text record, often used to carry machine-readable data such as information for automated domain validation.
• SRV record: Service record, provides a specification of location data in the Domain Name System (for example: the hostname and port number of servers for specified services). It can be used for specific protocols such as SIP (Session Initiation Protocol)
• TLSA record: TLS Authentication record, used to associate a TLS certificate or public key with the specified domain name. It allows you store the fingerprint of a TLS/SSL certificate in the DNS zone of your domain.
• NS record: Name server record, delegates a DNS zone to use the specified authoritative name servers.
• CAA record: Certification Authority Authorization record, used to set the certificate authorities (CAs) which are allowed to issue certificates for the domain name.
• ALIAS record: Alias record, maps a name to another name. It is similar to CNAME records but can coexist with other records on that name. It can be used if you want to map one name to another, and you do not need other record types (for example: MX records for emails) for the same name.

How to add DNS records

1. Click Domains and DNS in the Network section of the Scaleway console side menu. The Domains and DNS zone dashboard displays.
2. Click the domain you want to manage. The Domain Information page displays.
3. Click the DNS Zones tab. A list of the DNS zones you have configured within the selected domain displays.
4. Click the DNS zone you want to edit. A list of the zone’s records displays.
5. Click «Plus Icon» Add record to add a new record to your DNS zone. A pop-up displays.
6. Fill in the required information for the record.
7. Click Add Records to confirm.
   

How to edit DNS records

1. Click Domains and DNS in the Network section of the Scaleway console side menu. The Domains and DNS zone dashboard displays.
2. Click the domain you want to manage. The Domain Information page displays.
3. Click the DNS Zones tab. A list of the DNS zones you have configured within the selected domain displays.
4. Click the DNS zone you want to edit. A list of the zone’s records displays.
5. Click «Edit Icon». A pop up displays.
6. Fill in the required information.
7. Click Edit record.
   

How to delete DNS records

1. Click Domains and DNS in the Network section of the Scaleway console side menu. The Domains and DNS zone dashboard displays.
2. Click the domain you want to manage. The Domain Information page displays.
3. Click the DNS Zones tab. A list of the DNS zones you have configured within the selected domain displays.
4. Click «Delete Icon». A pop-up displays.
   
5. Type DELETE to confirm.
6. Click Delete record to remove the record from the zone.

How to configure dynamic records

Scaleway Domains and DNS provides advanced features for traffic management using your DNS zone. It allows you to redirect users based on their geolocation, the load on your different servers and more.

Weight Records

You provide a list of IPs with their corresponding “weights”. These weights are used to proportionally direct requests to each IP. Depending on the weight of a record, more or fewer requests are answered with its related IP compared to the others in the list.

Geo IP Records

The Geo IP feature provides DNS resolution, based on the user’s geographical location. You can define a default IP which resolves if no Geo IP rule matches, and specify IPs for each geographical zone.

Healthcheck records

The DNS service performs healthchecks as follows:

• You define a list of IPs (a pool) reachable via a single URL.
• The servers in the IP pool are contacted by their IP, and a HTTP GET request is sent to each, with the URL as a parameter .
• Each IP passes the healthcheck if it sends a response which includes a predefined string.

Having established the ‘healthy’ IPs, the DNS service responds to requests using one of the following strategies:

• Random: It sends a random healthy IP.
• Hashed: It uses the caller’s IP address to send a specific random healthy IP, which will always be returned for this caller IP.

If none of the addresses in the IP list has passed the health check, it sends a fallback IP.

The following values should be provided to use the DNS healthcheck service:

• Fallback IP: The fallback IP address to return if all health checks fail.
• URL: A (common) URL to use in GET (e.g. http://example.com/healthcheck).
• Data: The string to look for in the GET result (e.g. IamHealthy).
• Response strategy: The strategy to use. It can either be random or hashed.
  • Random: A random IP from the pool of healthy IPs is returned upon each request.
  • Hashed: The same (random) IP, from the pool of healthy IPs is always returned to same caller IP.
• IPs: A list of IPs to test during the check (e.g. 1.2.3.4, 2.3.4.5, …).

Views records

The answer to a DNS request is based on the client’s (resolver’s) subnet.