A/AAAA vs CNAME for box

Help with Setup/Upgrade
1

I am experimenting with using the DigitalOcean DNS and was wondering why you set an A record for subdomains rather than using a CNAME record.

Do these all do the same thing?

mailserver.com      A      104.21.38.81
mailserver.com      AAAA   2204:a480:800:11::11a:3001
box.mailserver.com  A      104.21.38.81
box.mailserver.com  AAAA   2204:a480:800:11::11a:3001

vs

mailserver.com      A      104.21.38.81
mailserver.com      AAAA   2204:a480:800:11::11a:3001
box                 CNAME  @

vs

mailserver.com      A      104.21.38.81
mailserver.com      AAAA   2204:a480:800:11::11a:3001
box                 CNAME  104.21.38.81
box                 CNAME  2204:a480:800:11::11a:3001
2

The first and second blocks are essentially equivalent. If those were the only records it might work the same. But since we set other DNS records a CNAME probably wouldn’t work right.

In your third block, those aren’t valid CNAME records. CNAME is an alias to another domain, not an IP Address.

3

That makes sense. Thanks!