DNS management in DirectAdmin from A to Z
DNS and hosting are like good wine and cheese, they belong together. You will also often encounter DNS when developing your website and when data needs to be adjusted. Once the domain is linked to a hosting package, you will manage your DNS via DirectAdmin. This knowledge base article explains the different DNS records as well as how to get there.
The different DNS records
Before we begin:
Modifying an existing DNS record is not possible, for this you will have to add a new record and delete the old one. In addition, it is important to know that a domain record must always end with a dot.
The different DNS records consist of: A, AAAA, CNAME, NS, MX, TXT.
A Records
An A record points the domain or sub-domain to the IP address of a server.
AAAA Records
AAAA records have the same function as an A record. The difference here is that AAAA uses an IPv6 address and an A record uses an IPv4 address.
CNAME Records
A CNAME record is responsible for fetching an A/AAAA record of a domain. It has the same function as an A/AAAA record, but the big difference here is that a CNAME record is dynamic. The IP addresses are automatically updated if the IP addresses of the domain are changed.
NS Records
NS records are the Nameserver records.
For example, if you have h8.mijn.host as a server from mijn.host. Then your NS records will be the following:
- h8.mijn.host
- h8.mijn.host
MX Records
The incoming email is guided in the right direction by the MX records, which is why MX is an abbreviation for Mail Exchanger.
Please note that if you have your mail hosted externally, you must disable the local mail server, otherwise communication problems will occur here.
TXT Records
TXT records have the responsibility to be present for verification purposes. For TXT there are three important records: DMARC, SPF and DKIM.
SPF is the most important of these because almost every spam filter requires an SPF record. An example of an SPF record is the following: “v=spf1 include:spf.test.domein”.
You cannot create DKIM records yourself, as they are already a configured key. DMARC is a standard for DKIM regarding how strictly it should check emails from your domain.
How do you get to the DNS settings in DirectAdmin?
Log in to DirectAdmin and click on Account Manager in the left navigation bar, then on DNS Management. 
On the DNS Management screen you can modify or add records.
If you cannot figure it out, you can always contact our support department.
Still have questions? Get in touch.