Can you provide a brief explanation of what a CNAME is?

CNAME is the abbreviation for Canonical Name, a type of DNS record used to direct one domain name to another. This allows one domain name to act as an alias for the actual host name. CNAME records are commonly used for domain redirection or pointing a domain to content provided by other services.

For example, if you have a website domain named example.com but you want to redirect visitors to another hostname called www.example.com, you can add a CNAME record in your DNS settings to point example.com to www.example.com. This way, when someone visits example.com, the DNS server will redirect the request to www.example.com.

One important characteristic of a CNAME record is the ability to change the target host name at any time without altering any other configurations of the domain. This makes maintaining and managing the domain more flexible and convenient. However, it is important to note that a domain can only have one CNAME record and cannot coexist with other record types such as A records or MX records.