Understanding the difference between Domain and DNS area

This guide explains the operation of a domain name and a DNS area.

Preamble

1. When you surf a website https://www.abc123.xyz for example, abc123.xyz is the domain name.
2. Each domain name has DNS (Domain Name System), which indicates where (for example, which provider) the DNS field is located.
3. The DNS area then allows the management of different domain name services to be entrusted to different providers.
   • For a single domain name, for example, it is possible to entrust:
     • Web hosting a provider X (via type recording "A")
     • and Mail Service to a Y provider (via type registration "MX")

Domain name, DNS and DNS area, then services

Who manages what?

1. Each domain name is reserved and managed by a registrar (Registration Office). P.ex Infomaniak is registrar, one of the cheapest in Switzerland.
2. The DNS of a domain name are configured with the registrar who manages the domain name.
3. The DNS area can be supported by the registrar or another provider.
4. Web hosting and Mail Service can be supported by any hosting provider.

In the most complex case, it is therefore possible to have 1 different provider for the following services: domain name booking and DNS management, DNS area management, Web hosting, Mail service.

Infomaniak

As registrar and host, Infomaniak can manage all these services. It's the simplest solution.

• In the case of Infomaniak the DNS are usually of the form nsXX.infomaniak.com and nsXX.infomaniak.com (XX as 11 or 12 e.g.).
• You can edit the DNS of your domain name, as well as modify the "inside" of these DNS i.e. modify the DNS area of a domain name.

And in these DNS areas, to redirect traffic to services, we distinguish:

• one MX record which makes it possible to point a domain name (domain.xyz e.g.) to an email server.
• one Registration A which makes it possible to point a domain name (domain.xyz e.g.) or a sub-domain (exemple.domain.xyz e.g.) to a Web server that has a static IP address (if not, you would have to edit the A record to enter the new IP address - check out this other guide on this subject)

Some possible situations

etc.