Set up for web hosting

Whenever I have used a web hosting service, they have me set the nameservers on my domain to their nameservers. i.e. mynewdomainname.com would have its namerservers set to ns1.mynewwebhost.com and ns2.mynewwebhost.com. How does the web host configure their nameserver(s) to support the name resolution of hundreds of domain names?

I am running a virtual dedicated server (Windows 2008 R2) and I have the DNS set up fine for my primary domain, but I cannot for the life of my figure out how to have other domain names set their nameservers to mine and have it work. I created a forward lookup zone for my primary domain (lets call it myprimarydomainname.com) so my nameservers are ns1.myprimarydomainname and ns2.myprimarydomainname. On the domain registration of myprimarydomainname I set the nameservers to those just written, and all resolves fine. But now I would like to have myseconddomainname.com use my nameservers, ns1.myprimarydomainname and ns2.myprimarydomainname.

How is that done? I will have no problem multi-homing the muliple domains to the correct folders in IIS, but I cannot figure out this DSN part.

Just get the nameservers hostnames and IP's to the registrar for that domain name. The registrar can be different than the hosting company so make sure you get it to the right one. With that information, they will create the glue records necessary for the TLD servers to refer lookups to your own server. Some companies have control panels that you can do that in but others don't.

I am not being clear, let me try again. I am running DSN on my owner server. I have the zone file set up correctly for my primary domain name, and have ns1 and ns2 nameservers established at the registrar for that name. Now as I add hosted customers, I want to tell them to set their domain's nameservers to mine. Isn't that typical? But I do not see how to modify my zone file to support any domain besides my own.
If I take some other domain I own, and set its nameservers to those of my primary domain name, it does not resolve properly.
Does that make more sense? Thanks.

I don't use Microsoft for DNS solutions. I have had far too many problems in the past with it so I wont touch it anymore. So someone else may have more info for you.


I found an article on adding a new domain to Microsoft 2008. I'm not sure if that will help or not.

http://support.gearhost.com/KB/a301/add-a-zone-domain-name-to-dns-in-windows-2008.aspx

You don't modify your zone file. You create a new zone file for the new domain. So basically, you would create another master zone and create records...

Create A record(s) to point their domain to your servers IP address
Create NS records to point to your nameservers.

At their registrar, they would need to put in the nameservers you created for your domain (which is listed under their zone files).

Thank you! That was the missing link. Thanks for pointing this out to me.