When you purchased a server plan from us and upon logging in to your control panel and when you add a domain in the DNS tab, we will automatically create A, CNAME & NS Records pointing to your new server for easy use. You do not need to create any records unless if you plan to add other advance Records  for mail or other services.

Note: When you add a domain to DNS tab, NS records pointing at DigitalOcean’s name servers are automatically created for it.

How to Manage DNS Records

Each type of DNS record has its own values and settings, and the sections below explain what each of these records are used for and what goes into the fields they contain.

However, all DNS records all have one value in common:

• TTL, or time to live, which determines how long the record will live in a visitor’s local cache.

Because loading data from a local cache is fast, high TTL values make a visitor’s experience faster. However, until their local cache expires and is updated by a new DNS lookup, visitors won’t see any DNS changes you’ve made. As a result, higher TTL values give visitors better performance while lower TTL values ensure that DNS changes are picked up quickly.

A Records

An A record maps an IPv4 address to a domain name. This determines where to direct any requests for a domain name.

On DigitalOcean, A records have the following fields.

• HOSTNAME, which can be set to:
  • The root domain (@). To map a root domain, like example.com, to an IPv4 address, enter the @ symbol.
  • A subdomain prefix (e.g. www). To create a subdomain, enter the subdomain prefix. For example, to create www.example.com, you would enter www.
  • A wildcard (*). To direct requests for a non-existent subdomain to a server or load balancer, enter *. However, if any kind of DNS record exists for a hostname, the wildcard will not apply; you will need to explicitly create an A record for it.
• WILL DIRECT TO, which can be set to:
  • A DigitalOcean Droplet or Load Balancer by typing its name and selecting it from the menu.
  • A non-DigitalOcean resource by entering its IP address.

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