DNS Zones Explained When someone types in the domain to your website on their browser: In the background, this

request is being routed to a nameserver, which in turn routes the request to the DNS zone that resides on your server. This DNS zone is responsible for your page appearing in a browser. There are several different types of information that are stored within a DNS zone. The address field contains the address mapping information for your IP address. This means that when a request for your domain is made, the DNS zone contains the information that is required for your browser to find your IP address. This IP address, even if it is shared with other users, is assigned to your domain name when you set up your nameserver. Each IP address would be mapped to a specific domain name or URL. It functions in much the same way as typing in a sites IP address in your browser, but it is much easier to remember a URL than it is to remember an IP address. This mapping field simply converts the domain name into the correct IP address. In addition to the address field in your DNS zone, the correct nameserver for your domain will be included. This nameserver must match the one that you had assigned to your domain for the process to work correctly. Your hosting company will provide you with this information but you will need to make sure that you have entered in the correct nameserver on your own, unless your hosting company is also the registrar of your domain.

The DNS Zone file The DNS Zone file is the representation of the DNS Zone - it is the actual file, which contains all the records for a specific domain. In a DNS Zone file, each line can hold only one record, and each DNS Zone file must start with the TTL (Time to Live), which specifies for how long the records should be kept in the DNS Server's cache. The other mandatory record for a DNS Zone file is the SOA (Start of Authority) record - it specifies the primary authoritative name server for the DNS Zone. After these two records are specified, additional records, such as A or NS records, can be added. When adding a record for a hostname, the hostname must end with a period (.). Hostnames, which do not end with a period, are considered relative to the main domain name, for which the DNS Zone was created. For example, when specifying the "www" record, there is no need to place a period after it. Comments in the DNS Zone file must be started with a semicolon (;) and the start of a multiple line comment is represented by brackets ("("), and comments must again start with a semicolon. When the multiple lines end, they must be closed again with a bracket (")"), placed on a single line.

DNS Records

SOA Record or "Start of Authority Record" Specifies the DNS server providing authoritative information about an Internet domain, the email of the domain administrator, the domain serial number, and several timers relating to refreshing the zone.

CNAME or "Canonical Name" (CNAME) Record is used to define an alias hostname. A "CNAME" record takes this format: alias.domain.name IN CNAME otherhost.domain.name.

This defines alias.domain.name as an alias for the host whose canonical (standard) name is otherhost.domain.name.

"A" Record An A record gives you the IP address of a domain. That way, users that try to go to www.example.com will get to the right IP address. An A record or "Address Record" maps a hostname to a 32-bit IPv4 address. An "A" Record takes this format (example): Name TTL TYPE DATA ftp.domain.com 43200 A IP Address (mt) Media Temple DNS Zone files are written with a "wildcard" entry, that looks like this: *.domain.com IN A xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx The x's represnt your particular IP address. The star takes "anything" .domain.com and points it to your server's IP address. This way, if someone mistakenly types too many or too few w's, they'll still see your website. This is also useful for setting up subdomains on your server, relieving you of the duty of adding an additional "A" record for the subdomain.

NS Record or "Name Server Record" Maps a domain name to a list of DNS servers authoritative for that domain. In this case, for (mt) Media Temple purposes would be: ns1.mediatemple.net ns2.mediatemple.net