We’ve added ALIAS record monitoring to DNS Check.

An ALIAS record maps one DNS record to another of the same type. For example, you might use an ALIAS record to make the widgets.com A record resolve to the same IP address as the www.widgets.com A record:

ALIAS Record Check

ALIAS records have some similar use cases to CNAME records, with a few important differences:

  1. ALIAS records can be used for a domain’s APEX, or root. CNAME records cannot.

  2. ALIAS records require a single DNS lookup. CNAME records might require multiple lookups.

  3. ALIAS records apply to a single DNS record type. CNAME records apply to all record types.

  4. ALIAS records are non-standard records that are only supported by some DNS providers, like Amazon Route 53 and DNSimple. Some other DNS providers, like DNS Made Easy and easyDNS offer similar functionality using what they refer to as ANAME records. CNAME records, by contrast are a standard DNS record type supported by most DNS providers.

You can find more details on ALIAS records, including information on how to monitor them on our Check DNS ALIAS Records page.

We hope you find the ability to check ALIAS and ANAME records useful. Please feel free to contact us if you have any questions.

If you haven’t tried DNS Check yet, please sign up for a free account. Free accounts can check and monitor up to 10 DNS records at a time. If you’d like to check more than 10 DNS records, then you can upgrade to a paid account at any time. We’d love to earn your business.