Skip to content

A & AAAA Record

A and AAAA records connect a hostname directly to an IPv4 or IPv6 address.

A and AAAA records are DNS records that connect a hostname directly to an IP address.

An A record points to an IPv4 address.

An AAAA record points to an IPv6 address.

Cloudflare documents A and AAAA records as the DNS records used to map domain names to IPv4 and IPv6 addresses. Cloudflare's DNS record-type reference

Example

An A record might look like:

Type: A
Name: @
Value: 192.0.2.10

This says, in simplified terms:

Requests looking up the root domain can find this IPv4 address.

An AAAA record performs the equivalent role with an IPv6 address.

A Record vs. CNAME

An A or AAAA record points directly to an IP address.

A CNAME Record points to another hostname.

For example:

A
example.com → 192.0.2.10

versus:

CNAME
www.example.com → example.com

The correct record depends on the hosting provider and DNS architecture.

Why It Matters

A wrong address record can send website traffic to:

  • An old server
  • A staging environment
  • An unrelated service
  • An unreachable address

This is a common issue during hosting migrations.

CDN Considerations

When a CDN or reverse proxy sits in front of the website, the public DNS record may not expose the Origin Server directly.

Instead, traffic may first reach the proxy provider.

The proxy then communicates with the origin.

Common Problems

Common problems include:

  • Old hosting IP left in DNS
  • www and apex domain behaving differently
  • AAAA record pointing somewhere different from the A record
  • Changing DNS before the new server is ready
  • Hardcoded IP address changing later

How to Improve

Use the record values provided by the hosting or infrastructure provider.

After changes, verify both IPv4 and IPv6 behaviour where both are configured.