Creating a DNS Record
In the portal, all [types of DNS records] are created through the record create wizard.
To get there:
- DNS from the main, left-hand navigation.
- Zones from the DNS sub-navigation menu.
- Select the zone from the first column.
- Add Record on the top right of the records page.
Record Create Wizard
After navigating to the record create wizard, a user can create a wide range of supported record types.
Root and Wildcard
To refer to the root domain, use @ in the name field. To create a wildcard
domain use an asterisk * in the name field.
Wildcard Records
Creating a wildcard record with TLS certificate will cause all children of that record which are set to use TLS to use this wildcard certificate.
Deleting Wildcard Records
When the wildcard record is created with a TLS certificate it cannot be deleted if other records depend on it and trying to delete this record will show an error.
Using the Record Create Wizard
Use the following information to complete each form required for the record.
Fill in all fields (detailed below), then click Add Record.
Type: LINKED
Linked records are a special type of record provided by the Cycle platform. These records get tied directly to a container, and alleviate the need to track and manage specific IP addresses. In addition, you can use LINKED records to generate and renew TLS/SSL certificates automatically (via Let's Encrypt). These certificates are terminated at the load balancer automatically, passing the traffic through to the container via port 80.
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| Name | Enter the subdomain for the record. For example, for subdomain.example.com, enter subdomain in the box. To set it to the root domain, use the @ symbol. |
| Environment | The environment the container this record will be associated with, lives in. |
| Link To | Use this dropdown to select either linking the record to a container or to a deployment tag. |
| Enable TLS | Generate a certificate for this record or use the wildcard. |
| GeoDNS | DNS queries to the domain this linked record is associated with will then always return the 3 closest LB IP entries. |
| Container | The container this record points to. |
TLS Attempts
Users can try to create 3 certs for the same domain within 1 hour (manually). So if a user were to try to create a cert at 15, 30, and 45 past a given hour, they'd be locked out of trying again until 15 past the next hour. This is to ensure the domain doesn't get restricted by Let's Encrypt for too many requests (which can lead to a much longer timeout). If a certificate is created and fails and a user does not try to manually recreate the certificate, Cycle will re-attempt every 4 hours for 3 days.
Type: A
The A record specifies IP address (IPv4) for given host. A records are used for conversion of domain names to corresponding IP addresses.
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| Name | Enter the subdomain for the record, or @ to use the root domain. |
| IP | The IPv4 for this record. |
Type: AAAA
The quad A record specifies IPv6 address for given host. It works the same way as the A record, the only difference being type of IP address.
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| Name | Enter the subdomain for the record, or @ to use the root domain. |
| IP | The IPv6 for this record. |
Type: CNAME
The CNAME record is used to create aliases of domain names.
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| Name | Enter the subdomain for the record, or @ to use the root domain. |
| Domain | The domain for the record to map to. |
Type: MX
The MX record specifies a mail exchange server for a domain name. The information is used by Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) to route emails to proper hosts.
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| Name | Enter the subdomain for the record, or @ to use the root domain. |
| Priority | Record priority setting. |
| Domain | The domain of the mail server. |
Type: TXT
The TXT record can hold an arbitrary non-formatted text string.
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| Name | Enter the subdomain you want for the record, or @ to use the root domain. |
| Value | The value to be served by the TXT record. |
Type: ALIAS
An ALIAS record is a virtual record type we created to provide CNAME-like behavior on apex/root domains. An apex/root domain is a domain without a sub-domain such as example.com.
Type: SRV
A service record (SRV) is a record that defines the location, hostname, and port of servers for specified services.
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| Name | The naming system is an underscore followed by the name of the service. |
| Priority | Information about the priority associated with this record, used to encourage use of certain servers over others. |
| Weight | If two or more services have the same priority, the weight number is used to determine which should come first. |
| Port | The port that is used to connect to for accessing the service. |