==== Adding, editing, and deleting records  ====

=== Types of records ===

Please click [[Types of DNS records|here]] for an overview of the DNS records supported by GeoScaling and on short descriptions of the most important ones, along with examples. If you're a beginner, [[Types of DNS records|read the  overview]] before reading this page, as this document assumes that you know what A, MX, and CNAME records are.

=== Adding records ===

Once you [[Adding, editing, and deleting domains |define]] a domain name and click on it, you will see the following form:

{{add_records_empty.png}}

Not all fields in the Add record box are used for all types of records you can add. For example, A records don't have priorities, like MX records do. So just ignore the extra fields in the form and fill in only the ones you need.

You can see the following fields in the form:
  * **name ** - this is where you define the name of the subdomain in A and CNAME records.
  * **type ** - here you can select the type of records you are adding
  * **content ** - here you define the IP address in case of A records or where the alias is pointing in case of CNAMEs
  * **ttl ** - ttl means [[wp>Time_to_live#Time_to_live_of_DNS_records|Time-to-live]]. This is a numeric field that defines the number of seconds DNS2 results can be cached by a client or a recursive nameserver. 300 is the default value, which means 5 minutes. If you set this value higher than the default of 5 minutes, it will take more time for any changes you make to the record to propagate everywhere on the Internet. You cannot define a value less than 300 here without our [[http://www.geoscaling.com/support.html|assistance]].
  * **priority ** - this field is used when adding MX or SRV records. Here's a quote from Wikipedia about MX priorities: "When a server decides to send SMTP mail, the relative priority of an MX server is determined by the preference number present in the DNS MX record of the recipient's domain. When a remote client (typically another mail server) does an MX lookup for the domain name, it gets a list of servers and their preference numbers. The smallest preference number has the highest priority and any server with the highest priority must be tried first. To provide reliable mail transmission, the SMTP client must be able to try (and retry) each of the relevant addresses in this list in order, until a delivery attempt succeeds. If there is more than one MX record with the same preference number, all of those must be tried before moving on to lower-priority entries."

**Important note:** As a general rule GeoScaling DNS uses full ([[wp>FQDN]]) names in all DNS records. This means that for example if you want to define the subdomain www for yourdomain.com, the final record will look like this: **%%www.yourdomain.com%% A 1.2.3.4**, and not **www A 1.2.3.4**. Now, although the result is what I have just described, you **do not** have to write the full subdomain in the name section when adding A, MX or CNAME records. To make it easier to add A, CNAME and MX records, GeoScaling DNS2 **automatically adds the name of the domain where appropriate**. So when you write www in the name field, GeoScaling adds .yourdomain.com after it. Or if you leave the name field empty, DNS2 adds yourdomain.com automatically, where appropriate. Please also note that DNS2 doesn't use ending dots in records, as [[wp>BIND]] does in some cases.

Once you click the "Add record" button, you either get an alert box with an error message, or your record gets added to the table above the form. Once a record appears in the table, it is live. All changes you make in GeoCaling DNS2 come to effect immediately.

=== Editing records ===

The records table will look something like this:

{{records_table.png}}

You can **click inside** any of the records to edit them in-place. A text box will appear and you will be able to change the record. Your changes will be saved when you press Enter or click outside the text box. If you press Esc while inside editing the text box you changes will not be saved and the record will revert to the old value.

=== Deleting records ===

Records can be easily deleted by clicking on the red icon which is next to each record:

{{delete_record.png}}

**Warning:** DNS2 will not ask you for confirmation, it will just go ahead and delete the record, and as always, all changes are live. Don't shoot yourself in the foot.

=== Importing records from other domains ===

You can also [[Importing records from other domains|import records from other domains]].