What is a domain name ?

A domain name is a dot-separated list of strings containing letters, digits and minus signs, like pathsurvey.eu.org. An URL is something like http://www.eu.org/rrtypes.html. Only the part between http:// and the next / is a domain name.

EU.org only deals with domain names, not URLs. In short, this means that if you only want to give your Web homepage a shorter or nicer name, DNS in EU.org is not for you.

Resource record types

CNAME

A CNAME is an alias to a name of your choice that you can change any time you want. It can be used, for example, to obtain a provider-independent address for dialup users. It has the drawback of being "hidden", for example your mail addresses will be rewritten with the "real" name, not the alias you requested in EU.org. On the other hand, it needs no configuration change except here in EU.org.

For example, suppose your mail address is currently you@cheapnet.fr and you'd like it to be you@mynet.fr.eu.org (notice that the username, left of @, will not change). You only need to fill a request for domain mynet.fr.eu.org, type CNAME, and put cheapnet.fr as Name1.

MX

This is a "mail exchanger" record that is used to direct mail to a particular machine. To use this, you need the destination machine to be configured to recognize your new address. This obviously implies that the administrator of the target machine must agree.

Wildcard MX

Exactly the same as the above, except it also gets mail for subdomains. The destination machine should be able to deal with this, of course.

NS

Full domain delegation, the method that gives you the most control over your domain. To use this, you need at least two permanently connected machines running a nameserver configured with your domain.