
I was losing emails for years without knowing - pedrokost
https://medium.com/@pedro.kostelec/i-was-loosing-emails-for-years-without-knowing-424ed02c8d60
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quigbo
What the author refers to as a "naked domain" is more generally termed the
zone apex.

A CNAME does not co-exist with other records (save for RRSIGs if the zone is
signed). Quoting RFC 1034:

 _If a CNAME RR is present at a node, no other data should be present; this
ensures that the data for a canonical name and its aliases cannot be
different. This rule also insures that a cached CNAME can be used without
checking with an authoritative server for other RR types._

The rational for CNAME was originally to provide a temporary pointer to a new
name. It's in vogue to use it as the author has done as a kludge for find-
my-A/AAAA-record-here, and it is mostly a fit for trivial use cases, but it is
only a partial solution.

Some argue that a standardized ANAME/ALIAS record is needed to suit the needs
of the modern DNS. I agree but I also think it's time to consider how we might
better allow SaaS providers to maintain records on behalf of users more
directly. Doing so would take the burden off of users like the author to
understand and correctly maintain DNS records, and allow SaaS providers more
nimble and fine-grained control of the customer records for rebalancing load
and the like.

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svennek
Sorry, but redirecting the naked domain seems like the wrong way. The correct
way is getting both the naked and www domain set up on the serving host. Then
either CNAME or A record the www to the naked... And if needed let the naked
domain redirect to the wwww itself.

Three simple steps, and should be universally implementable....

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wattt
Interesting findings! I've had trouble with DNS providers and it is always
with the root or "@" domain. As a Bind administrator it drives me mad how they
make things complex unnecessarily to save me from myself, often resulting in
failed switch-overs, and a 2x wait on DNS updates.

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worldadventurer
This is a nice unexpected benefit of using Cloudflare to manage our DNS: they
automatically flatten your apex/naked domain as well as the www subdomain (if
you set them up using CNAMEs in their DNS manager).

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bartl
It's nice for him that he found out what was wrong with it, but I am still
none the wiser.

~~~
wattt
Multiple factors from my understanding, mostly because the DNS vendor expects
a particular configuration and didn't complain when it accepted "bad" data for
their systems.

