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What is an A record?

An A-Record (Address Record) assigns a domain or subdomain to a specific IPv4 address, i.e. the IP address of the server on which the domain is hosted. The A entry can either contain a specific domain (e.g. example.ch) or a placeholder (* entry, e.g. *.example.ch), which catches all subdomain cases that are not explicitly declared.

How do I set my A records correctly?

– Make sure that each A record contains the correct IP address of the server on which the (sub)domain is hosted. You can view this information in your hosting package.

– If you use our e-mail service, make sure that the domain via which your e-mails are to be sent has the same IP address as the server stored in the MX record.

What is an AAAA record?

An AAAA record is used to assign a domain or subdomain to an IPv6 address and is the IPv6 equivalent of the A record. If IPv6 is supported in your hosting package (always with our hosting packages), the AAAA entry should refer to the IPv6 address of the server and match the IP addresses of the A entries. As IPv6 addresses are represented in hexadecimal, the last hexadecimal value should correspond to the last value of the A entry (IPv4) in decimal.

How do I set my AAAA records correctly?

Use the IPv6 address of the server if it has an IPv6 address. This allows you to ensure accessibility via IPv6.

What is an MX entry?

The MX entry (Mail Exchanger) specifies the mail server that is responsible for receiving emails for this domain. This entry must always point to the server that manages the email services. In most cases, this is the mail server that is displayed in your hosting package.

What is an SPF entry?

An SPF entry (Sender Policy Framework) is used to authenticate emails and must be present to ensure that emails can be sent via our servers. An SPF entry prevents spoofing and improves deliverability. The SPF entry should be configured as a TXT entry and contain the following value:

“v=spf1 include:spf.firestorm.ch -all”

What is a CNAME record?

A CNAME (Canonical Name) record functions as an alias for a domain. If a CNAME is stored for your domain, the domain is automatically forwarded to the domain stored in the CNAME and takes over all DNS entries of the target domain. However, it is important that the domain in the address bar is not changed with a CNAME. So if you forward example.ch to test.ch via CNAME, example.ch will still appear in the address bar of the browser. Only the content is taken from the target domain.

What is TTL?

TTL (Time to Live) indicates in seconds how long a DNS entry is temporarily stored by devices and DNS resolvers before it is retrieved again. As a rule of thumb, we use a TTL value of 600.

Please note that it can take up to 24 hours for changes to DNS entries to take effect globally.