Title: Delegation
Course: CIS 208: Linux/UNIX III: Intermediate System Administration, Networking, and Security ~ For IGNITE Review > Section: Learning Modules

Delegation

The owner of a domain very often will need to delegate a subdomain to another organization.  All that is required to delegate a subdomain is the nameservers of the subdomain.  For example, the root servers manage the top level domains, and they delegate edu to a set of servers.   These servers then delegate the wccnet.edu domain to dns.wccnet.edu and dns2.wccnet.edu.  If desired, the wccnet.edu could further delegate is.wccnet.edu to a separate set of servers, although they do not do this.

Delegation for forward lookups will be managed by the registrar when a domain is registered, however the reverse lookups need to be managed separately.  Typically the Internet Service Provider (ISP) will manage all PTR records on their servers.  Very often organizations use this service of the ISP.  If you prefer to run your own zones for in-addr.arpa subdomains, request the ISP to delegate your block of addresses to your nameservers.  Likewise, it is possible to further delegate in-addr.arpa domains.

For small organizations it is common to use service providers to manage all aspects of DNS.  Yet in the enterprise it is common to have dedicated teams to manage the registration, planning, upkeep and delegation of various domains and subdomains.