canonical name

(CNAME) A host's official name as opposed to an alias. The

official name is the first hostname listed for its Internetaddress in the hostname database, /etc/hosts or the

Network Information Service (NIS) map hosts.byaddr ("hosts"

for short). A host with multiple network interfaces may have

more than one Internet address, each with its own canonical

name (and zero or more aliases).

You can find a host's canonical name using nslookup if you

say

set querytype=CNAME

and then type a hostname.

(1994-11-29)