In DNS, a subdomain is a portion of a domain that you’ve
delegated to another DNS zone. For example, if TechRepublic hosted a support
domain, that domain might be support.techrepublic.com. Likewise, a company
might use subdomains for its various divisions, such as east.company.tld,
west.company.tld, and so on.

To delegate a subdomain, you must create the delegation on
the server hosting the parent domain. For example, to delegate
support.techrepublic.com, the server hosting the techrepublic.com zone must
include a delegation for the support subdomain.

Windows 2000 Server makes it easy to delegate a subdomain,
thanks to the New Delegation Wizard. Follow these steps to delegate a
subdomain:

  1. Open
    the DNS console, right-click the host domain, and choose New Delegation to
    start the New Delegation Wizard.
  2. Click
    Next, specify the subdomain name (such as support), and click Next.
  3. Click
    Add, add the host name of the server that will host the subdomain, click
    Resolve, and click OK.
  4. As
    needed, set up secondary servers to act as backups for the server acting
    as the primary for the delegated domain.
  5. Click
    Next, and click Finish to create the delegation.

This process delegates the subdomain, but there are no
records in its target zone. On the first server that will host records for the
subdomain, create a new zone (such as support.techrepublic.com), and create the
necessary DNS records for the zone. Repeat the process on other servers, or
configure another server as a secondary for the zone.

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