Definition
A canonical name refers to a type of database record in the domain name system (DNS) that indicates a domain name has an alias. This is useful in situations where multiple servers operate from a single IP address.
Canonical Name Examples
If, for instance, you have two domain names that point to the same application, e.g., extremevpn.com and www.extremevpn.com, a canonical name helps to avoid maintaining two records. In this example, the canonical name extremevpn.com points to www.extremevpn.com, while the latter points to a server IP address.
Use Cases of Canonical Name
- To direct several websites belonging to a single entity or organization to its home website.
- To give a unique hostname for diverse network services such as FTP or email.
- To provide subdomains for each user on a single service provider domain and direct the subdomain to the user’s root domain using CNAME.
- To register a single domain in different countries and use each country-specific version to point to the primary domain.