Editing CNAME record (section)

=== Possible confusion ===
With a CNAME record, one can point a name such as "''bar.example.com''" to "''foo.example.com''". Because of this, during casual discussion, the "''bar.example.com.''" (left-hand) side of a DNS entry can be incorrectly identified as "the CNAME" or "a CNAME". However, this is inaccurate. The canonical (true) name of "''bar.example.com''" is "''foo.example.com''". Because CNAME stands for Canonical Name, the right-hand side is the ''actual'' "CNAME"; on the same side as the address "A".

This confusion is specifically mentioned in RFC 2181, "Clarifications to the DNS Specification". The left-hand label is an alias for the right-hand side (the RDATA portion), which ''is'' (or should be) a canonical name.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2181#section-10.1.1 |title=RFC 2181: Clarifications to the DNS Specification |date=July 1997 |access-date=2011-03-09 |publisher=[[Internet Engineering Task Force|IETF]] }}</ref> In other words, consider the following CNAME record:
{{sxhl|2=zone|bar.example.com.        CNAME  foo.example.com.}}
This may be read as saying that "''bar.example.com''" is an alias for the canonical name (CNAME) "''foo.example.com''". A client will request "''bar.example.com''" and the answer will be "''foo.example.com''".