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I have a domain (e.g. mytakeaway.com) on a Plesk 9.5 Linux server. It's got a site associated with it currently.

I'm using a 3rd party ordering system (to be housed within an iframe), which I need to supply a domain for. I want to use ordering.mytakeaway.com for this. I've been given the nameservers (e.g. ns1.serviceprovider.com and ns2.serviceprovider.com) which this subdomain needs to point to, but I'm not sure how to set it up - I've only ever set up simple subdomains with a direct IP before.

I've not been able to uncover much info online (partly because I'm not sure exactly what I want!), hopefully someone here will know better!


Edit: Ok, going to try and explain a bit better...

I have a domain, say mytakeaway.com set up on my server, hosting the main site on the same machine.

I'd like to create a subdomain, ordering.mytakeaway.com, which will be used for a 3rd party ordering system. The 3rd party have their own servers for this service, and on these an account set up for "ordering.mytakeaway.com".

I need it so that if someone accesses ordering.mytakeaway.com (which would initially come to my server), that it then looks up the correct server to redirect to from the 3rd party nameservers.

Kinda like how when looking up a .co.uk domain first goes to .uk, then .co.uk.

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  • Can you please be a bit more precise as to what exactly is required? Both things (i.e. supplying a sub domain and using THEIR name servers does not make sense. If it´s their name servers, they set up the sub domain, but that means they will also control how your domain, i.e. mytakeaway.com is being resolved. That does not make much sense. Please post a link for the requirements.
    – user109720
    Feb 6, 2012 at 20:51

1 Answer 1

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It's called a delegation.

And it's done by the DNS servers, not the HTTP servers. You do realize that there are two protocols and two distinct sets of servers here, right?

You imply that you already have a content DNS server publishing the DNS data for mytakeaway.com., which will include the A and AAAA resource records pointing to your HTTP content server(s).

You also imply that the ordering system service provider provides both DNS service and HTTP service. Its servers publish the DNS data for ordering.mytakeaway.com., which will include the A and AAAA resource records pointing to its own HTTP content server(s).

You thus need your content DNS server delegate the subdomain ordering.mytakeaway.com. from itself to the ordering system service provider's DNS servers, whose IP addresses the ordering system service has apparently already supplied you with.

That's done by simply setting up ns resource records and a (possibly aaaa) resource records for the other half of the mapping, which should be in-bailiwick for best results:

;; mytakeaway.com. zone
ordering IN NS a.ns.ordering
ordering IN NS a.ns.ordering
a.ns.ordering IN A 10.53.0.1
a.ns.ordering IN A 10.53.0.2
b.ns.ordering IN A 10.53.1.1

Coördinate the in-bailiwick intermediate domain names with the ordering system service provider.

If the ordering system service provider has only provided you with intermediate domain names, and not the actual IP addresses, you'll be forced to use out-of-bailiwick delegation information. This causes more lookup traffic for the world, and runs a greater risk of breaking, since it requires extra (sometimes a great deal extra) back-end lookups for query resolution. Notice the lack of A and AAAA resource records. You haven't been told the IP addresses, and even if you had, no-one would trust your content DNS server if it published them, because of the out-of-bailiwick delegation information.

;; mytakeaway.com. zone
ordering IN NS ns1.example.net.
ordering IN NS ns1.example.net.

Of course, if things are not as you imply, and your ordering system service provider isn't providing content DNS service, then you simply need to have your own content DNS servers publish A (and AAAA) resource record sets for ordering.mytakeaway.com. — no delegation required.

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  • Excellent, thats exactly what I needed, decent explanation too. Thanks!
    – Josh
    Feb 7, 2012 at 17:28

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