A benefit to hierarchical structures is that the responsibility for subordinate nodes can be delegated. Although the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has authority over the DNS directory, it delegates the responsibility to accredited registrars for top-level domains, such as com, net, and org, and delegates to the appropriate governmental agencies for country top-level domains, such as ca, de, and es. Registrars delegate responsibility to you when you register a domain and you may further delegate the responsibility for your subdomains however you please. Each boundary formed by delegating responsibility creates what is known as a DNS zone.

This recipe teaches you how to configure BIND to operate as an authoritative DNS server for your zone. If you recall the previous recipe's discussion on how a DNS request propagates, you'll remember that authoritative servers have the final say for a resolution. This is because...