DNS Domains / Subdomains question

[Barry Margolin]

In article <aSfP3.7522$PV2.139523 at news.rdc1.tn.home.com>,
FlashBack <jim at jim.com> wrote:
>Hi,
>
>I have scoured the net looking for the answer to this question to no avail. 
>
>I am considering setting up a web server to host some commercial sites that I 
>maintain. In order to keep the cost down for businesses, I would like to  
>assign web addresses that use one domain...... example:
>
>I own the domain www.business.com [I wish!] and Joe's Bakery wants a website. 

Do you really own just www.business.com, or do you own the whole
business.com domain (yes, I realize "business" was just a placeholder in
your example, and I'm using it the same way).

>I want to be able to give them the web address joesbakery.business.com, so 
>they do not need to pay for a web address, but so it still looks better  than 
>www.business.com/joesbakery/ .  What are the rules for doing this?

If you own the whole business.com domain, you should be able to create any
names within the domain.  That's the whole point of a domain -- it gives
you your own namespace within which to name things.

If joesbakery.business.com is intended to be equivalent to
www.business.com/joesbakery, you should make joesbakery.business.com an
alias for www.business.com, i.e. put:

joesbakery  CNAME  www

in the zone file for business.com.  Then configure your web server to
implement joesbakery.business.com as a virtual host that maps to the
DocumentRoot/joesbakery directory.  Your web hosting provider should be
able to help you with this part (if they can't, get a new service, because
they're too clueless to be worthwhile).

-- 
Barry Margolin, barmar at bbnplanet.com
GTE Internetworking, Powered by BBN, Burlington, MA
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