One of most confusing aspects of DNS is its subdivision of the naming tree into Zones of Authority. It's really not that difficult to understand. The top node of each zone has an SOA (Start of Authority) resource record, along with NS (Name Server) records to identify its name servers. The parent zone also has the same set of NS records to identify servers for the sub zone. All of these resource records have the same domain name - the top name of the zone. The parent zone may also need address (A) records for the sub zone's name servers.
Click here to read what RFC 1034 says about zone division, then read both the subsections, then come Back here. The discussion of class division is largely irrelevent - the Internet Class is the only one we're really interested in.
Did you read all three pages in RFC 1034? Good.
Questions? Click here to send me some email.
Now, click here to continue.