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An alias (CNAME) record cannot be added to this DNS name.

Question

Friday, August 9, 2019 3:11 PM

"The DNS name contains records that are incompatible with the CNAME record."

We had an old file server called liberty.  It's long gone.  We copied all of the data to a file server named vash.

I verified that there are no A records left in this forward lookup zone for liberty.

When I try to make a cname for liberty to vash, it throw the error listed above.  If I use my first name, I can create a CNAME to vash.  I'm trying to figure out why this is.  I understand that if i had two a records I couldn't add a CNAME, but the liberty a record is gone.  There was one, but I deleted it.

Actually this all started because Vash wasn't auto registering DNS from the NIC, and after research I found someone put an a record for liberty but used Vash's ip.  I deleted the a records, then did an ipconfig /registerdns from vash to fix that.

What am I missing?  Is there some liberty reference in some other part of AD DNS?

Any help is appreciated!

All replies (5)

Tuesday, August 13, 2019 8:00 AM ✅Answered | 1 vote

Hi,

Thank you for your update.

This is not a normal behavior. Based on my knowledge, when creating a CNAME record with the same name as an existing A record, an error will be reported.

*"and A record removed from DNS."—> *The A record you described may not be completely deleted. I would suggest that you can try the following method:

right click the server name in DNS manager—> click Clear Cache

Hope it helps.

Best regards,

Abby

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Monday, August 12, 2019 8:40 AM

Hi,

Thanks for your posting in this forum.

Before going further, I would appreciate your help in clarifying the following situations:

1. Do you want to create a CNAME record for vash server?  I'd link to explain that the premise of creating a CNAME record is that there is an A record.

2."*When I try to make a cname for liberty to vash, it throw the error listed above.  If I use my first name, I can create a CNAME to vash." —>*What is the name of CNAME you are trying to create?  And what is the first name you described?

3."I understand that if i had two a records I couldn't add a CNAME." —> I am not very clear about the meaning of your description. Based on my knowledge, it is not feasible to use the same name for both the A record and the CNAME record. 

Your cooperation is appreciated.

Best regards,

Abby

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Monday, August 12, 2019 2:06 PM

I had an old server named liberty.  It was decommissioned, computer account deleted from AD, and A record removed from DNS.

I have a live server named Vash, which uses automatic DNS registration vis the NIC card setting.

I'm trying to make a CNAME to Vash, named Liberty, and the DNS console throws an error saying I can't.

Just to make sure I can create a different CNAME to Vash, I tried making one named Shannon, and that worked.

It's almost like I can't create a cname from one servername to another, but I would think that rule would only apply if there was already a A records for Libert.  There isn't, so I don't understand why DNS won't let me, unless there is some reference to Liberty in som subfolder or weird place.  Libery also used to be a domain controller.  I can't find any records so far in DNS, referencing Liberty.

Tuesday, August 13, 2019 2:26 PM

You're absolutely right. Even though I deleted the Liberty record, it was back there. It wasn't a static record, it looks like an auto-registration on 8/9. Weird. There is only one NIC on that server, and auto-registration should show up as Vash. I wonder if one of the other engineers that used to work here did something weird on the Vash server to make it think it's Liberty.

Anyway, as soon as I deleted it, I created a CNAME and it worked.  Thanks for the help!

Wednesday, August 14, 2019 1:21 AM

Hi,

I am glad to hear that your issue was successfully resolved.

If there is anything else we can do for you, please feel free to post in the forum.

Best regards,

Abby

Please remember to mark the replies as answers if they help and unmark them if they provide no help.
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