What is a glue record?

A glue record breaks a circular lookup. It applies when your nameservers live inside the domain they serve:

• The circularity - to find example.com.au you must ask ns1.example.com.au, which you cannot find without first finding example.com.au.
• Glue supplies the address directly at the parent registry, cutting the loop.
• Most small businesses never touch one - it only arises if you run your own nameservers under your own domain.

If you use your registrar’s or a managed DNS provider’s nameservers, glue is already handled for you.