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Pure.Krome
Asked: 2009-11-12 19:56:16 +0800 CST

What's the meaning of '@' in a DNS zone file?

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I have the following data in my DNS zone file for my domain:

$ORIGIN mydomain.com.
@       IN      A       208.X.Y.Z
mail    IN      A       208.X.Y.Z
... etc..

What does the @ line mean? I know what an A record is.. but a host with an ampersand at sign?

domain-name-system

3 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    RFC 1035 defines the format of a DNS zone file.

    ... on page 35 you'll find:

    @ A free standing @ is used to denote the current origin.

    This means that @ is a shortcut for the name defined with $ORIGIN.

    You can find more information on $ORIGIN here, which is an excerpt from Pro DNS and BIND, published by Apress.

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  2. It's the root, or in your example it's mydomain.com.

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  3. It's an alias for the zone name itself. In this case, it indicates that the zone name has that address (or mx record, or ...)

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