CNAMEs and subdomains

[Barry Margolin]

In article <200001132249.QAA16558 at nts.nts.umn.edu>,
Scott Bertilson  <scott at nts.umn.edu> wrote:
>  Wondering about this issue because we have
>lots of entries in our top level domain like:
>
>$ORIGIN umn.edu
>www.altdept		IN CNAME	www.dept.umn.edu.
>
>$ORIGIN dept.umn.edu
>@			IN	SOA	ns.nts.umn.edu. hostmaster.nts.umn.edu. (
>				1000113143 50400 3600 604800 50400 )
>www			IN A		192.168.0.1
>
>We'd like to provide the perception of a subdomain
>("altdept") without actually having to create one.

There's nothing wrong with the CNAME record.  However, if that SOA record
is in the umn.edu zone file, it's wrong.  The only time you should have an
SOA record is when you've delegated a separate zone, and BIND requires each
zone to be in its own file.  If the dept.umn.edu data is in the umn.edu
zone file then you're not delegating the subdomain, so you don't need an
SOA record.


-- 
Barry Margolin, barmar at bbnplanet.com
GTE Internetworking, Powered by BBN, Burlington, MA
*** DON'T SEND TECHNICAL QUESTIONS DIRECTLY TO ME, post them to newsgroups.
Please DON'T copy followups to me -- I'll assume it wasn't posted to the group.