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Using microsoft DNS All/most of our local hosts ( with in ) are in following domain

*.company.org So a host name will look like mymachine001.company.org

Is it possible to set up wild card DNS entries of the form ?


Note: The URL ends with .com, all other hosts so far ever set up in the DNS were of the format *.company.org

what i am trying to achieve is the following. A user with in internal network types a url http://someprefix.subd.company.com in browser and enters. Since there is a wild card entry in DNS, the user gets routed to host mapped to *.subd.company.com in the DNS

Note : at the same time, company.com has a public DNS entry and that is mapped to a physical IP in some other network (data center)

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migrated from superuser.com Oct 10 '12 at 17:44


It is possible, but probably not what you want - it would be helpful if you could explain a little further what you want to achieve? –  Claudius Oct 10 '12 at 16:11
@Claudius thanks, I have updated the question. –  ring bearer Oct 10 '12 at 16:46
You don't put "URL entries" in the DNS. URL is a Web concept, not a DNS one. –  bortzmeyer Oct 10 '12 at 20:12
@ringbearer Wait, is the fact that your normal hosts are in .org and you're asking about .com pertinent the question or is that a typo? –  Dan Oct 10 '12 at 20:29
That was not a typo - that was the intent –  ring bearer Oct 10 '12 at 21:10

2 Answers 2

up vote 3 down vote accepted

Yes, this is possible - you will need to create a DNS zone on your DNS server(s). You can do one of two things:

Create a zone for the whole of `company.com` and then add *.subd

The advantage is that you will have complete local control over this domain, the potential disadvantage is that it create a full split DNS setup. Meaning that if a load of subdomains exist (E.g, mail.company.com, staff.company.com etc etc) you will need to recreate all these in your DNS Zone.


Create a zone JUST for `subd.company.com` and then a wildcard for the whole thing

The advantage here being that mail.company.com will still go through your normal forwarding routes meaning you don't have to mess. The disadvantage is that you need to be very aware of what you do and don't have zones for. Troubleshooting may be more difficult and it will get terribly messy if you want subd2.company.com and subd3.company.com in the future.

The best solution will really depend on what company.com is currently doing and what you want it do. You also need to very clear that running the zone locally means you now have two possible places where DNS entries are. You should ensure you clearly understand your forwarders and so on.

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No, creating a zone is not necessary. A subdomain is sufficient. –  bortzmeyer Oct 10 '12 at 20:11
@bortzmeyer Sorry if I've missed something, but how? His domain will be .org, and he needs a .com zone –  Dan Oct 10 '12 at 20:27
Try to avoid a split zone scenario. Just try to add local subdomains for the specific things that you want to handle internally. –  jishi Oct 10 '12 at 21:23
@jishi Split-DNS isn't automatically a bad thing, you just have to be aware of what you're doing. –  Dan Oct 10 '12 at 21:26

Yes it is possible. Just setup an A or MX record in the form *.subd.company.com. Any more specific answer is dependant on your DNS Server.

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Pardon my ignorance. So, does that mean that we can treat DNS records just like /etc/hosts entries ? –  ring bearer Oct 10 '12 at 18:46
@ringbearer answering this question would require knowledge about how you actually treat /etc/hosts. Of course, both mechanisms provide a mapping between names and IP addresses, DNS as a server-based approach and the hosts file as a local approach. For some hints on how to implement a wildcard entry with MS DNS see serverfault.com/q/215270 –  the-wabbit Oct 10 '12 at 19:59

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