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DNS

Introduction

Overview

Authoritative Domain Name System (DNS) provides a resilient and highly available domain hosting for your zones and records.

Key Features

  • Manage multiple domain names
  • Support for all standard DNS record types (See below table for more details)
  • DNSSEC and DDoS protection

Supported Record Types

Record TypeDescriptionExample
AThe A record contains an IP address. It is stored as a decimal dotted quad string.10.1.2.3
AAAAThe AAAA record contains an IPv6 address.2001:db8:2000:bf0::1
AFSDBAFS database record. Location of database servers of an AFS cell. This record is commonly used by AFS clients to contact AFS cells outside their local domain. A subtype of this record is used by the obsolete DCE/DFS file system. 
ALIASWorks like a CNAME but it's resolved internally into an address allowing you to use it at your zone apex.webserver-01.example.com.
CAACertification Authority Authorization. DNS Certification Authority Authorization constraining acceptable CAs for a host/domain. 
CERTCertificate record. Stores PKIX SPKI PGP etc. 
CNAMECanonical name record. Alias of one name to another: the DNS lookup will continue by retrying the lookup with the new name.webserver-01.example.com.
DHCIDDHCID identifier. Used in conjunction with the FQDN option to DHCP. 
DNAMEDelegation Name. Alias for a name and all its subnames unlike CNAME which is an alias for only the exact name. Like a CNAME record the DNS lookup will continue by retrying the lookup with the new name. 
DNSKEYDNS Key record. The key record used in DNSSEC. Uses the same format as the KEY record. 
DSDelegation signer. The record used to identify the DNSSEC signing key of a delegated zone. 
KXKey Exchanger record. Used with some cryptographic systems (not including DNSSEC) to identify a key management agent for the associated domain-name. 
LOCLocation record. Specifies a geographical location associated with a domain name.51 56 0.123 N 5 54 0.000 E 4.00m 1.00m 10000.00m 10.00m
MXThe MX record specifies a mail server for a domain. Each mail exchanger also has a priority or preference. The lower the number the higher its priority.10 mail.example.com.
NAPTRNaming Authority Pointer. Allows regular-expression-based rewriting of domain names which can then be used as URIs further domain names to lookups etc. 
NSName server record. Delegates a DNS zone to use the given authoritative name servers.ns1.example.com.
OPENPGPKEYOPENPGPKEY is used to associate an end entity OpenPGP Public Key with an email address. 
PTRReverse pointer used to specify the host name belonging to an IP or IPv6 address.www.example.com.
SOAThe DNS ‘start of authority’ (SOA) record stores important information about a domain or zone such as the email address of the administrator, when the domain was last updated, and how long the server should wait between refreshes. 
SRVService locator. Generalized service location record used for newer protocols instead of creating protocol-specific records such as MX.0 5 5060 sipserver.example.com.
SSHFPSSH fingerprint.2 1 123456789abcdef67890123456789abcdef67890
TLSAUsed to bind a SSL/TLS certificate to named hosts and ports.1 1 8755CDAA8FE24EF16CC0F2C918063185E433FAAF1415664911D9E30A924138C4
TXTText record. Originally for arbitrary human-readable text in a DNS record. Since the early 1990s however this record more often carries machine-readable data such as specified by RFC 1464 opportunistic encryption SPF DKIM DMARC DNS-SD etc. Make sure to put quotes around the text content."any text"
URIThe URI record is used to publish mappings from hostnames to URIs.10 1 "http://www.example.com/path"

Common Use Cases

  • Website Hosting: Hosting a website with apex domain support, example.com.
  • Email Service: Configuring email service using your own exchange server or a third-party provider.

Prerequisites

  1. Make sure you have the necessary DNS actions permissions for your account
  2. Registered Domain name(s)
  3. Basic understanding of DNS concepts

Getting Started

Accessing DNS Management

  1. Log in to your Cloud Portal
  2. Navigate to Networking → DNS
     
     

Adding Your First Domain/Zone

  1. Click “Create” from the top-right corner
  2. Select your Tenant and Business Group
  3. Type your registered domain name under Zone field
  4. (Optional) Add Description to your zone
  5. Click “Submit”

 

Adding DNS Records

  1. Select your domain/zone from the table
  2. Under the “DNS Records” tab, click “Add Record”
  3. Choose Record Type
  4. (Optional) Add Name to create record for a subdomain, or leave it empty to create record for the root/apex domain
  5. Enter Record Value, for multiple record values, enter one record value per line
  6. Enter Record TTL duration in seconds (Used by DNS recursive resolvers to cache information about this record)
  7. Click “Submit”

 

Managing Existing Records

  • View all records in the domain/zone details page
  • Edit records by hovering over a record, and clicking “Edit” button
  • Delete records by hover over a record, and clicking “Delete” button

 

Advanced Use Cases

Bulk-adding DNS records

  1. Navigate to Tools → Bulk Actions
  2. From the actions dropdown, select Create Record action
  3. Enter the following information per record
    1. zoneId: the ID of your DNS Zone, you can view your zone ID in the details section under your zone page.
    2. bgId: the ID of the business group (e.g., T001-BG001).
    3. type: the type of the DNS record (refer to the above list of supported types).
    4. name: the full name of the DNS record with the zone (e.g., poc.acme.sa or *acme.sa for root domain records).
    5. content: the DNS record's content. For multi-line content, join the two lines with the & (Ampersand character) to form the multi-line record.
    6. ttl: time-to-live amount in seconds.


Example Record
 

1,T001-BG001,MX,poc.acme.sa,10 exchange.acme.sa&20 exchange.acme.sa,3600

 

Notes

Some record types (like TXT records), require special characters in their value (in the case of TXT it's surrounding the value with quotation marks), add the same format in bulk actions:

2,T001-BG001,TXT,poc.acme.sa,"test record"&"test2 record",3600

Updated at 2025-09-09