A Canonical Name record (abbreviated as CNAME record) is a type of resource record in the Domain Name System (DNS) which maps one domain name (an alias) to another (the Canonical Name.) A Canonical Name record (abbreviated as CNAME record) is a type of resource record in the Domain Name System (DNS) which maps one domain name (an alias) to another (the Canonical Name.) This can prove convenient when running multiple services (like an FTP server and a web server, each running on different ports) from a single IP address. One can, for example, point ftp.example.com and www.example.com to the DNS entry for example.com, which in turn has an A record which points to the IP address. Then, if the IP address ever changes, one only has to record the change in one place within the network: in the DNS A record for example.com.