So I was looking through my DNS records and I found something strange. The email address I used to setup cPanel/WHM with was: william@example.com,

So I went to DNS functions -> Edit DNS zone, selected my domain and then saw something strange:

enter image description here

What is my email address doing in my DNS zone's first record, but with the @ replaced with a .?

Is this just something weird cPanel did, or something DNS does itself?

  • 2
    It's a minimum requirement as detailed here under: Zone file format. As part of that format, the @ symbol is replaced with a period. cPanel does this for you, though you should be able to edit it there if need be using the same format. – dan Oct 11 '14 at 9:20
  • I edited the question (and corresponding screenshot) so your email address wouldn't be scraped by spam bots. – dan Oct 11 '14 at 9:42
  • @dan Great, thanks! :) May I know which tool you use for that? – William Edwards Oct 11 '14 at 9:49
  • NP. Edit the SOA record as detailed here. – dan Oct 11 '14 at 9:55

The email address is part of the SOA record. Its second value is the email address of the administrator.

As a minimum, the zone file must specify the Start of Authority (SOA) record with the name of the authoritative master name server for the zone and the email address of someone responsible for management of the name server. The email address in the SOA RR has the @ symbol replaced by a period.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zone_file#File_format

(Thanks to @dan!)

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It's so they know who actually administers to the site. In the event someone compromises a website theres someone at least kinda accountable.

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