Domain Vs Hosted Zone

Zone files must always start with a start of authority soa record which contains important information including contact information for the zone administrator.

Domain vs hosted zone. There are two types of hosted zones. Domain name servers store information about part of the domain name space called a zone. Because you re the owner of the domain your registrar offers you the option to configure. As each domain is further divided into sub domains each becoming a dns zone itself with its own set of administrators and dns servers the tree grows with the largest number of leaf nodes at the bottom.

A zone always starts at a domain boundary to include all leaf nodes hosts in the domain or it ends at the boundary of another independently managed zone. A zone file is a plain text file stored in a dns server that contains an actual representation of the zone and contains all the records for every domain within the zone. To see the actual zone file for a domain and test dns zone transfers you can perform a zone file lookup using one of many dns tools. The name server is authoritative for a particular zone.

A hosted zone and the corresponding domain have the same name. A single name server can be authoritative for many zones. A zone is a domain less any sub domains delegated to other dns servers see ns records.