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Awebb

Member

Registered: 2010-05-06

Posts: 6,688

[SOLVED] Subdomains and DNS records

Today I was very busy learning more about remote server administration. To make it short, I have several VPS instances at my disposal, running different Linux distributions. My host allowed me to directly order a domain, but offers no interface for subdomain management, MX records and so on. The MX record should not be a problem, I don't plan on change that on a daily basis, so a support mail will suffice. However, after years of dealing with provider side configuration panels, there is one specific series of questions I could not solve by using search engines and reading random documentation.

1. I am aware, that I can configure my own subdomains in, say, Apache with the VirtualHost setting. My question here: How does the DNS server know about this? Will it first ask domain.tld about sub.domain.tld or am I required to somehow manually inform any DNS servers about the new sub domain? I know that Plesk (which I refuse to use, because I cannot install my free license manually, but have to select a Plesk ready image) can do it, so it must work without my provider.

2. What happens to my subdomains, if my domain.tld is offline? It does not matter, if the domain is not a redirection to another IP, I am aware of that.

3. If I want something other than my usual webserver on a subdomain, say my mailserver, then I will have to configure that in the specific application? Is it advisable to have Apache manage all the subdomains?

Most importantly: I would like to learn, how this works, but I am lost between documentations, half-baked tutorials and really old step-by-step guides. Can anyone point me at some introductory texts about the topic? I would go as far as purchasing an ebook, if everything else fails.

Last edited by Awebb (2014-07-15 19:45:36)

Slithery

Administrator

From: Norfolk, UK

Registered: 2013-12-01

Posts: 5,776

Re: [SOLVED] Subdomains and DNS records

1. I am aware, that I can configure my own subdomains in, say, Apache with the VirtualHost setting. My question here: How does the DNS server know about this? Will it first ask domain.tld about sub.domain.tld or am I required to somehow manually inform any DNS servers about the new sub domain? I know that Plesk (which I refuse to use, because I cannot install my free license manually, but have to select a Plesk ready image) can do it, so it must work without my provider.

You need to set up a DNS entry (usually an A or CNAME record) for each subdomain  you require. If you don't have direct access to your DNS settings then it's support emails for each subdomain I'm afraid.

This is one of the reasons I stick with Linode, there DNS management is superb.

You could switch management of your DNS to a free service such as http://freedns.afraid.org/, this would give you complete control over the entries in your zone file.

Last edited by Slithery (2014-07-15 16:29:52)

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Awebb

Member

Registered: 2010-05-06

Posts: 6,688

Re: [SOLVED] Subdomains and DNS records

Thank you! My immediate question has been answered.

As a side note, an email to the support revealed, that they have a panel for domain administration. Now I feel like an idiot, after learning where it is, I cannot understand how I could not find the entry.