30.3. Creating a New Master Zone
A master zone is one for which your DNS server is the authoritative source of information. A single zone may be hosted by multiple servers, but only one is the master—all the rest are slaves. If you want to add a new master zone to your server's configuration, the steps to follow are:
1. | Decide on a name for the new zone, such as example.com or internal. If this is going to be Internet domain that will be visible to other everyone in the world, the domain name must not have been registered by anyone else yet. However, you cannot normally register it yourself until your DNS server has been set up to host it. |
2. | On the module's main page, click on the Create a new master zone link below the table of existing zones. This will take you to the page shown in Figure 30.3 for entering the details of the new zone. Figure 30.3. The new master zone creation form.
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3. | If this is to be a forward zone like example.com or foo.com.au, leave the Zone type field set to Forward. However, if it is a reverse zone for looking up hostnames from IP addresses, set the field to Reverse. |
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5. | The Records file field controls where the configuration file containing the zone's records is stored. If you leave it set to Automatic, the filename will be determined automatically based on the module's configuration and the directory setting in the named.conf file. This is usually the best option, as it will result in the records file being created in the same directory as any existing zones, such as /var/named. However, if you de-select the Automatic option and enter a filename instead, all records for the zone will be written to that file. If you enter the name of an existing file, it will be overwritten when the domain is created. |
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12. | Click the Create button at the bottom of the page. As long as the form has been filled in correctly and the zone does not already exist on your server, you will be taken to a page for adding new records to the zone. |
13. | Return to the module's main page which will now include an icon for your new zone and click the Apply Changes button at the bottom to activate it. |
A newly created zone will contain only one record (unless you have set up a template). To add more, follow the instructions in Section 30.4 “Adding and Editing Records”. Once you have set up the basic records in your domain, you can register it with the authority that manages the parent domain, such as .com or .com.au. Some domain authorities will not allow you to register zones that do not have at least two servers (one master and one slave) and name server records in the zone for those servers.