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I have found a free php hosting service. I do not disclose the name as I am referring to a problem they seem to have. They offer you hosting with a subdomain, but it takes up to 5 days for the new subdomain to be up. They say the wait has been 24 hours bun now they are experiencing some problems with new registrations.

I do not know much about the process, just know that when a new user is registered his subdomain is added to a queue to be processed. I do not think they are too busy with a burst of new registration requests.

Is 5 days normal? What steps should be taken to activate a new subdomain? And aren't these steps automated? Is there mandatory a wait period for response from third party?

Thank, Majid

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5 days is abnormal, anything greater than 2 hours starts to be fairly abnormal many places.

The initial task is adding the subdomain to DNS. After this, it depends on the webserver in question for how it handles the new vhost or addition of that name to a currently used vhost. Possibly a service request there which might wait until off hours to be done. All of this can be automated.

I would guess that if this is a free service and takes 5 days, it is just the time for the person to get the request and process it while also making sure that tasks which pay the bills get done.

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Thank you sparks. Do you happen to have some web references to the tools that automate the process? – Majid Fouladpour Nov 5 '09 at 19:46
Sparks, wait. I'll post that as a proper question. – Majid Fouladpour Nov 5 '09 at 19:47
Any new domain or record added to the DNS tables once picked up by the DNS server will be active and usable. Changes to existing records are cached by other servers. This is controlled by the domain record and is often set to 3 days. – Matt Nov 5 '09 at 21:53
Correct, but the resolution is only one part of adding the process of going from "add this subdomain" to a working website or service. – sparks Nov 5 '09 at 22:20

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