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    Alibaba Cloud DNS:Quick start for Private Zone

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    Alibaba Cloud DNS:Quick start for Private Zone

    Last Updated:Jun 03, 2026

    Configure Private Zone to resolve a domain name to a private IP address within a VPC.

    Workflow

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    Prerequisites

    • A VPC and a vSwitch have been created. For this tutorial, use the CIDR block 192.168.0.0/16 for the VPC and 192.168.0.0/24 for the vSwitch. Create and delete a VPC and a vSwitch.

    • An ECS instance has been created in the VPC to host a demo service. Note its private IP address (for example, 192.168.0.83). Resources within the same VPC (such as vpc-hangzhou) can access the service at demo.example.com. Purchase and use an ECS instance.

    Procedure

    Step 1: Add a zoneUser Defined Zones

    1. Sign in to the Alibaba Cloud DNS console for Private Zone.

    2. In the left-side navigation pane, choose Authoritative Zone > User Defined Zones. Then, click Add Zone.

    3. On the Add Zone page, configure the following parameters.

      Authoritative Zone: Enter example.com.

      Recursive Resolution Proxy for Subdomain Names: Keep enabled (default).

      Leave other parameters at their defaults.

      Important

      You can change the effective scope at any time. We recommend that you configure the scope after adding DNS records.

      If a VPC is linked to a zone with no records, DNS queries for the domain from that VPC fail because they are not recursively forwarded to public DNS servers.

    Step 2: Add a DNS record

    1. Sign in to the Alibaba Cloud DNS console for Private Zone.

    2. Navigate to Authoritative Zone > User Defined Zones. Find your zone and click Settings in the Actions column.

    3. On the Settings tab, click Add Record and configure the following parameters.

      Record Type: Select A.

      Hostname: Enter demo.

      Record Value: Enter 192.168.0.83.

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    Step 3: Configure effective scope

    1. Sign in to the Alibaba Cloud DNS console for Private Zone.

    2. Navigate to Authoritative Zone > User Defined Zones. Find your zone and click Effective Scope in the Actions column.

    3. In the Effective Scope panel, select the VPC that you want to associate with this zone.

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    Step 4: Verify resolution

    1. Create another ECS instance in the same VPC for testing. Purchase and use an ECS instance.

    2. Sign in to the new ECS instance and run the following command:

      curl demo.example.com

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      If the correct IP address is returned, the configuration is successful.

      If no service is running on the destination instance, run ping demo.example.com to verify DNS resolution.

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