An authoritative forward-mapping zone is an area of domain name space for which one or more Grid members have the responsibility to respond authoritatively to name-to-address queries.

To create an authoritative forward-mapping zone:

1. From the Data Management tab, select the DNS tab, expand the Toolbar, and click Add -> Zone -> Add Auth Zone.
2.   In the Add Authoritative Zone wizard, click Add an authoritative forward-mapping zone and click Next.
3. Specify the following:
• Name: Enter the domain name for the zone. Omit the trailing period (" . ") that signifies the root zone. You can use IDNs as well. For information about IDNs, see Support for Internationalized Domain Names.
• DNS View: This field displays only when there is more than one DNS view in the current network view. Select a DNS view from the drop-down list.
• Comment: Enter a descriptive comment about the zone.
• Disable: Click this checkbox to temporarily disable this zone. For information, see Enabling and Disabling Zones. Note that disabling a zone may take a longer time to complete depending on the size of the data.
• Lock: Click this checkbox to lock the zone so that you can make changes to it and prevent others from making conflicting changes. For information, see Locking and Unlocking Zones.
4. Save the configuration, or click Next to continue to the next steps in the wizard as follows:
   • Define the name servers for the zone. For information on specifying primary and secondary servers, see Assigning Zone Authority to Name Servers. For information on specifying authoritative name server groups, see Using Authoritative Name Server Groups.
   • If you have assigned a Microsoft server as the primary server for the zone and if the zone is AD-integrated, you can configure a list of domain controllers that are allowed to add NS records to the zone. For information see, Configuring Domain Controller List.
   • Define extensible attributes. For information, see Using Extensible Attributes.
   or
   Click the Schedule icon at the top of the wizard to schedule this task. In the Schedule Change panel, enter a date, time, and time zone. For information, see Scheduling Tasks.
5. Click Restart if it appears at the top of the screen.

Creating a Root Zone

The NIOS appliance allows you to create an internal root zone for your organization. When the appliance receives a query for DNS data that is not in its cache or authoritative data, it can query an internal root server after querying any specified forwarders. If you do not specify an internal root server and the appliance can access the Internet, it queries the Internet root servers. For information on root name server, see About Root Name Servers.
To create a root zone, create an authoritative forward-mapping zone as described in Creating an Authoritative Forward-Mapping Zone and specify the following:

• Enter a period (.) in the Name field.
• Optionally, enter a comment.
• Select a Grid member as the primary name server for the root zone.

Once created, the root zone automatically becomes the parent of all the zones under the root zone.