Scenario:

What is a "CNAME" record?

Solution:

"CNAME" records, short for "Canonical Name", create an alias from one domain name to another.

Note a CNAME record will not work everywhere. If you create an MX record, you must create an A record to that address and not use a CNAME

Example

If you have a server where you keep all of your documents online, it might normally be accessed through docs.example.com.

docs A 10.10.0.1

You may also want to access it through documents.example.com. One way to make this possible is to add a CNAME record that points documents.example.com to docs.example.com. When someone visits documents.example.com they will see the exact same content as docs.example.com.

documents CNAME docs.example.com.