How to control own domain/zonefile ?

[Clenna Lumina]

Ok, say I register foo.com, and I have my own linux box with
bind
installed, and I want to use that to control my own domain,
instead of
using zoneedit.com or whatever DNS applet a registrar might
provide. In
other words, I can setup a zonefile easily enough, but that
only works
so long as one manually points nslookup or dig to said linux
box.

How do I make it world accessible, so to speak? I know I can
change the
name servers for the domain via the registrar control panel?
Is this all
there is to it? I get the feeling there is more. And what if
the
registrar doesn't have such an applet?

P.S.
I doubt this is possible, but is there any way to manually
"register" a
domain myself withotu going through one of those registrars?
I mean,
most cost only $10 USD, which makes me think that it doesn't
really cost
them anything, thus making profit on all those $10
registrations.
Basically, eliminate the middle man. I mean, how EXACTLY does
a
registrar register the domain you pick via their website?

I also want to be able to control reverse dns (PTR records)
which
normally one cannot when using a registrars.

I know there are "ROOT" name servers out there that control
all the
TLDs, and so I figure there must be a way to directly
register a domain
in the area before the TLDs, or how ever the registrars do
it.


Sorry, I know, I'm asking a lot of questions, but after doing
a lot of
searching, I can't really find much clarity on the matter,
and maybe
someone can really clear this all up for me I hope.

Thank you.

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