There are some potential complications when you start getting into delegation of subdomains, but that is a pretty rare setup. Generally speaking you are going be dealing with two levels of DNS. There is the "domain" itself which you would go to a registrar for, like foo.com or foo.co.uk That registrar tells the DNS root servers (the people that act as the directory for .com, .org, .co.uk, etc) who is authoritative for your domain foo.com, where the DNS server for that domain is.
Then you manage your dns zone file yourself on your DNS server. That is where the A records, CNAME, MX records etc go. Then what happens when a web browser wants a page from a.foo.com is that the client computer asks its local DNS server who has the address for that, the local DNS server figures out who is authoritative (hosts the dns zone file) for foo.com and then it goes and asks the dns server for foo.com what the address of a.foo.com is. The DNS server that hosts the zone file will respond with either an A record (which lists an actual ip address) or a CNAME which says, "what you really want is this A record over here". So except for when you are registering a domain name, you are pretty much dealing with a zone file that has individual records, almost all of which are either A, CNAME, MX (for mail servers) or PTR (for reverse lookup of a host from an IP address). Hope that helps, Judah On Mon, Jul 6, 2009 at 12:35 PM, Ian Skinner<[email protected]> wrote: > > Dave Watts wrote: >> The servers "jolie" and "apps" are hosts, not domains. If the server is >> registered in DNS with an A or CNAME record, it's not a domain. >> >> Dave Watts, CTO, Fig Leaf Software > That clarifies some of it. I really need to get my head around the > entire DNS way fores and whatnots someday ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Want to reach the ColdFusion community with something they want? Let them know on the House of Fusion mailing lists Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-talk/message.cfm/messageid:324269 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-talk/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=11502.10531.4
