CNAME records and A records

Contact your DNS manager (usually your Internet service provider) and ask them to set up either a CNAME record or an A record as directed on the Add Domain page.

CNAME records

CNAME records are used to assign an alias to an existing hostname in DNS. A CNAME record might look like this:

abcdefgh.mydomain.com CNAME autodomain.mailcontrol.com.

Where CNAME indicates that you are specifying a CNAME record.

Make sure you include the trailing period in the domain name. Both the domain name and the character string are provided on the Domains screen when you add a new domain.

The above example indicates that abcdefgh.mydomain.com is forwarded to autodomain.mailcontrol.com. This enables Forcepoint Email Security Cloud to confirm that you own mydomain.com.

A records

An A record is the Address record which maps a domain or subdomain to a valid IP address. In this case, it is matching a character string provided on the Add Domain screen. The record indicates that the specified string can be reached at the given IP address.

An A record might look like this:

abcdefgh.mydomain.com IN A 86.111.217.190

Where

  • IN indicates Internet
  • A indicates the Address record.

The above example indicates that the IP address for abcdefgh.mydomain.com is 86.111.217.190.