AAAA RECORD

The Complete Guide to AAAA Records

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This is the second installment of a ten-part series outlining the ten most common Domain Name System (DNS) Records.  In the first installment, I defined precisely what IPv4 was, went in-depth on Time To Live (TTL), and identified the three types of DNS Servers (DNS Resolver, DNS Root Serve, and Authoritative DNS Server).  I also demonstrated that if you wanted to point your website to a IPv4 address, you would create an A Record on your DNS provider.  Likewise, If you want to point your domain to an IPv6 Address, you would create an AAAA Record on your DNS provider. 

Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPv6) is the sixth version of the Internet Protocol that is used to route traffic on the internet – IPv6 was deployed to production in 2012, although most internet traffic is still routed via IPv4.  As discussed in the previous article, Internet Protocol is governed by Request For Comments memoranda (RFC) 791.  IPv6 is designed to accommodate the growing number of devices, and is refuted to be more secure.  For further reading, this article dives into the differences between IPv4 and IPv6.  A quick scan of examples of the two types of IP address can give you an idea of the increased complexity of IPv6:

  • Example IPv4 Address: 1.160.10.240
  • Example IPv6 Address: 3ffe:1900:4545:3:200:f8ff:fe21:67cf

Below is an image for adding an AAAA record via GoDaddy.com. which is identical to the fields when adding an A Record: Type, Host, Points to, and TTL.  

GoDaddy Adding AAAA Record

Type is the kind of Record, Host is typically your website domain or subdomain.  Points to is where you input the IPv6 Address, and TTL is where you designate the Time To Live.

Like A Records, you can have multiple AAAA records for the same domain. Multiple domain names could point to the same address, in which case each would have its own AAAA record pointing to that same IP address.   If you’re not sure if your website is IPv4 or IPv6, you can check that here, or you can check with your hosting provider. 

Next in the DNS Records Series I will discuss the CNAME Record, or Canonical Name Record.

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