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Setting Up a CNAME or Alias A Record at the Apex of a Domain

Published on 05.02.2026

Why this is a problem in the first place

The Domain Name System was never designed to allow the apex of a domain (for example, example.com) to directly point to another domain name.

DNS rules, defined in RFC 1034 and RFC 1035, require that the apex of a domain always contains certain mandatory records, most notably:

• SOA (Start of Authority)
• NS (Name Server records)

At the same time, DNS does not allow the apex of a domain to behave as an alias for another hostname. In other words, the root of a DNS zone cannot simply say “this domain is the same as that other domain” while still keeping its required authority records.

As a result, while pointing a subdomain to another domain is fully supported:

www.example.com → another-domain.example  ✅ allowed

doing the same thing at the apex is not supported by standard DNS:

example.com → another-domain.example  ❌ not allowed

This limitation is not imposed by registrars or DNS providers—it is a fundamental constraint of how DNS zones are defined and delegated.

The Route 53 solution: Alias A records

AWS solves this problem with a non-standard but widely used extension: the Alias A record.

Route 53 Alias records:

• Look like normal A records to DNS resolvers
• Internally resolve to AWS resources
• Are maintained dynamically by AWS
• Work at the apex of a domain

This allows you to safely point example.com to CloudFront without violating DNS rules.

Move your DNS hosting to Route 53

If your domain is currently using another DNS provider, you must first migrate DNS hosting to Route 53.

Note: You do not need to transfer your domain registration—only the DNS hosting.

Steps:

1. Open the Route 53 console
2. Create a Public Hosted Zone for your domain (e.g. example.com)
3. Route 53 will generate a set of name servers
4. Update your domain registrar to use these Route 53 name servers
5. Once this is done, Route 53 becomes authoritative for your domain.

Create the Alias record for the apex domain

Now you can create the Alias record.

1. Go to your hosted zone in Route 53
2. Click Create record
3. Configure the record as follows:
4. Record name: (leave empty); this represents the apex (example.com)
5. Record type: A
6. Alias: Yes
7. Alias target: Paste your CloudFront distribution into the field
8. Save the record.

Route 53 will now return the correct IP addresses for your CloudFront distribution as if they were A records, even though they are resolved dynamically.

Conclusion

DNS does not allow setting another domain at the apex of a domain, and CloudFront does not expose fixed IP addresses. Route 53’s Alias records bridge this gap by resolving AWS resources internally and returning valid A records to clients.

If you are hosting on AWS and need to point an apex domain to CloudFront, Alias A records are the cleanest and safest solution available today.