CNAME record

In DNS parlance, a CNAME record is an alias from one hostname to another. For example, your web server might have an A record of, where your hostname is "webserver" and your domain is "example.net". In order to have  point to this server, you might use a CNAME, or alias.

A BIND format CNAME record looks like this: www   IN    CNAME    webserver.example.net.

This creates an alias from  to.

Adding CNAME records to your DreamHost-hosted DNS domain
You can add CNAME records to your domain in the DreamHost Control Panel, under Domains->Manage Domains->DNS.

This can be useful if you run servers outside of DreamHost and you would like to direct additional names to those machines.

It should be noted that for hostnames, you should use an A record, not a CNAME. A CNAME, or alias, is appropriate for additional names that refer to that same host, as in the example above.

You can't set a SOA and a CNAME on a domain, which effectively means you can't set a CNAME on a domain itself. This is a DNS restriction.