Setting domain records correctly based on predefined ones

Question

I bought a new domain (let's call it example.com) from a domain provider (let's call it provider.com).

I would like to point the domain to my server. The thing is that the provider automatically created lots of domain records out of the box:

+------------------+-------------+------------------------------------------------------+
|       NAME       | RECORD TYPE |                        VALUE                         |
+------------------+-------------+------------------------------------------------------+
| ipv6.example.com | AAAA        | (IPv6 address)                                       |
| example.com      | MX          | 10 example.com                                       |
| example.com      | A           | (IPv6 address)                                       |
| example.com      | NS          | dns.provider.com dns2.provider.com dns3.provider.com |
| example.com      | SOA         | dns.provider.com admin.provider.com                  |
| example.com      | TXT         | "v=spf1 mx a ptr ~all"                               |
| mail.example.com | CNAME       | example.com                                          |
| ftp.example.com  | CNAME       | example.com                                          |
| www.example.com  | CNAME       | example.com                                          |
| *.example.com    | CNAME       | example.com                                          |
+------------------+-------------+------------------------------------------------------+

What I originally wanted to do, was to add a new A record and 2 CNAME records for www and subdomains. But with all the records the provider set, I'm not sure which records to touch now.

Generally speaking: which records do I need to change and which not?

More specifically: I assume that I still want to update the A record to the IPv4 of my server. But what with the AAAA / MX / NS / SOA records? And further: what with the mail and ftp subdomain entries?

Answer 1

Since www.example.com is a CNAME to example.com, do not change that record.

For your website, update A record with the relevant IP and add for the same label example.com an AAAA record only if your hosting company gave you an IPv6 address for your host and when everything is configured to work with it (hence the ipv6 record may be a temporary entry to test things out before putting the AAAA directly under www.)

If you do not use it anywhere, remove ipv6.example.com. Also if you are not going to do mass subdomains hosting, I recommend removing *.example.com as wildcards in the DNS create more problems than anything else. Of course, create explicit records for your subdomains, and either make them CNAME of example.com like www (if the subdomains are hosted on the same box as www of course) or add explicit A/AAAA records for them (if they are hosted elsewhere or on same box as www).

Remove mail.example.com and ftp.example.com if you do not use them: it is silly nowadays to use the FTP protocol anymore and mail.example.com could be useful if you have email for this domain, but if not remove it and also the MX (it is only needed if you are receiving emails to *@example.com). The TXT record you have if also only useful if you are sending emails from [email protected], so if not remove it.

You could of course add back things later on if you decide to do emails or something.

Do not touch the NS records unless you are changing your DNS hosting provider (and know what you are doing)

Do not touch the SOA record for the same reason (it is even silly that your provider gives you access to that)

There are other combinations possible, the previous is just one way.