In BIND should a subdomain be created as an A record or as a Master Zone?

Webmin
1

In BIND I have a domain.tld zone that resolves to the IP address X.Y.Z.K.
If I want to create a “sub1” subdomain that resolves the same IP address (there is an Apache Server) what should I do?
Create a “sub1” A Record in the “domain.tld” zone, or create a new sub1.domain.tld zone?

SYSTEM INFORMATION
OS type and version Debian 12
Webmin version 2.105
2

@ IN SOA ns0.tadmin.com. root.ns0.tadmin.com. (

SOA = Start of authority. Your ‘glue records’ will point all requests for ANY domains with domain.tld to this zone/record. This includes sub1.domain.tld .

So, if it is the same domain name, it will be an A record in the existing zone.

Worst that can happen is it doesn’t work and I was wrong. :wink:

3

in my experience, I only create an actual master zone when there are several other entries in that subdomain space — MX, CNAME, TXT or if you need a special/separate/unique SOA for that subdomain. Of course multiple server name entries (mail., ftp., smtp., www. etc) in the subdomain will be more manageable to have a master zone for that subdomain.

otherwise, as ID10T said, a simple A record in the upper zone should work just fine; in fact many dns configs (not sure if your question was general, or specific to Virtualmin) support multipart names (??) (ie, a name/entry containing a dot in the middle), so the upper zone can contain both sub1.domain.tld and www.sub1.domain.tld – where the actual DNS entry would be sub1 and www.sub1.

4

Many thanks to both of you.
Then I will create an A record.

5

Your question is reversed. A subdomain is just a name. A zone is a thing you can delegate. If you need to delegate DNS for that subdomain to other name servers, then you need a new zone.

(And, since your question is reversed, I think that probably means you want an A record. If you had a requirement to delegate, you would have asked about that.)

1 Like
6

You are right and by delving into the concept of delegation everything becomes clearer and more understandable.
But my question makes sense if we think that in all commercial panels there is a function to create the subdomain and some companies only allow the creation of subdomains for a fee.
It is therefore natural to think that even in Webmin the subdomain is an autonomous entity. Not finding the function to create it, I wondered how else to do it.
Since I don’t need to delegate management, from now on I will create the domain with Record A.
Thanks too for the explanation.

7

Which is why we don’t do that. It’s misleading to treat a “subdomain” as anything other than a name.

1 Like