With a basic knowledge of DNS, you know that different types of records are required to identify hosts and different types of services and attributes related to the domain.
The most common types of DNS records used in most domains and their most common uses are described below.
| Record | Type | Explanation |
| A | IPv4 Address Record | Associate a hosts name with an IPv4 address |
| MX | Mail Exchange Record | Used to identify mail servers that perform mail services for the domain |
| NS | Name Server | Identifies an authoritative DNS server for a particular zone |
| PTR | Pointer | Maps IP addresses to hosts for use in a reverse DNS lookup |
| SRV | Service Locator | Service Locator – A general service record. Used generically instead of creating protocol specific records such as MX. |
| AAAA | IPv6 Address Record | Associate a hosts name with an IPv4 address |
| CNAME | Canonical Name Record | Used to create an alias to reference one host by multiple names |
| DNAME | Delegation Name Record | delegates an entire portion of a DNS tree under a new name not to be confused with CNAME which is for an individual name. |
| LOC | Location Record | Specifies a geographical location of a domain |
| SOA | Zone Authority Record | Contains authoritative information about a domain including: serial number which other servers for the zone can use to identify changes; primary name server; refresh to identify the interval to check for serial number changes; email of domain administrator; and other information. |
| SPF | Sender Policy Framework | Stores information relating to the SPF Protocol. SPF data can be stored in the type of record or in a TXT record. |
| TXT | Text Record | Used to store various values such as SPF information |
The most common ones typically used are:
NS, A, MX and SPF
