{"id":59889,"date":"2021-02-25T13:01:11","date_gmt":"2021-02-25T19:01:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.cpanel.com\/?p=59889"},"modified":"2021-02-25T13:01:11","modified_gmt":"2021-02-25T19:01:11","slug":"the-dns-zone-for-beginners","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/devel.www.cpanel.net\/blog\/tips-and-tricks\/the-dns-zone-for-beginners\/","title":{"rendered":"The DNS Zone For Beginners"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

For all intents and purposes, DNS can be considered almost like the internet\u2019s phonebook. At least that\u2019s how it\u2019s most often metaphorically explained. However, your domain\u2019s DNS zone is slightly less like an old yellow pages and much more like the saved contacts list within your cell phone. You enter a phone number and a name to go with the phone number, hit save and then you can promptly forget the phone number because you\u2019ll only ever need to search by name. Right? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For a DNS zone though, the name would actually be a domain name, subdomain, or service (like email or FTP) and the phone number would be an IP address. The concept is still the same though, so long as you enter the correct information then a DNS zone is very much a set it and forget it<\/em> situation. Let\u2019s dig in a learn a bit more about it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The DNS Zone<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Much feared, and often misunderstood, the D<\/strong>omain N<\/strong>ame S<\/strong>ystem zone truly is simply a way for you to direct your domain’s visitors to the correct page or service under your domain. With just a basic understanding of a few things, you\u2019ll actually be able to manage your own DNS zone like a total pro. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Explaining how the entire internet works is slightly beyond the scope of this blog post, so for now let\u2019s just start with nameservers. If you\u2019ve ever registered a domain and had to point that domain to your hosting server, then you\u2019ve interacted with nameservers. Nameservers exist solely to direct traffic from the internet to your actual website anytime someone types your domain into their web browser (or otherwise click on a link to your website).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nameservers look exactly like a regular URL (in fact, they basically are simply a domain name created via A RECORD, which we’ll get to momentarily), and you would provide them at the domain registrar level in order for any request for your domain to be routed from the internet at large to your hosting server, which is where your actual domain\u2019s DNS zone will take over. For example, here are the nameservers for cpanel.net:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"cPanel<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

What those nameserver do is ensure any traffic under the cPanel.net domain gets routed to the the point where the DNS zone for that domain will take over, depending on if the visitor wants to view the main website, or perhaps https:\/\/cpanel.net\/store<\/a> or even https:\/\/cpanel.net\/blog<\/a>. Each subdomain will have its own entry in the DNS zone to direct traffic appropriately. But how? The answer lies in the actual entries in the DNS zone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

DNS Entries<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

There exists four basic types types of DNS entries that we will discuss here:<\/p>\n\n\n\n