I've found instructions to point my domain's CNAME to Amazon's CloudFront service but ideally I would like to point the root name (A record name). For example, foo.com instead of www.foo.com. Is this possible?
Wrong. CNAMEs should not be used for a root domain, because some older email servers cannot handle them. In fact, some registrars will not allow you to create a CNAME for the domain root.
SLaks
2010-06-01 15:58:04
Really? I read the opposite. But regardless, can you be more precise? While I use A-records, I know a gazillion of sites that use CNAME records. Wikipedia, not the smallest of them all, uses CNAME records for all local versions (i.e. `nl.wikipedia.org` is a CNAME). Perhaps with "old" you mean pre-1990s?
Abel
2010-06-01 16:03:02
Bottom line: don't worry about CNAME. Also, email servers don't use CNAME or A-records, they use MX-records, which, from what I see, is based on names, not IP addresses (for instance, check gmail).
Abel
2010-06-01 16:05:40
I've personally seen an email server last year that could not send mail to my domain because the root domain was a CNAME.
SLaks
2010-06-01 17:02:47