Overview of the DNS Domain Namespace
The DNS domain name space is made up of levels. The names of these levels, and the portion of the fully qualified domain name that they represent, are important to know when configuring Single Sign On Support/Cookie Sharing settings.
The following table describes the DNS domain levels that are important to understand when configuring Commerce Server.
| Name Type | Description | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Top-level domain | A name of two or three letters used to indicate a country/region or the type of organization using a name. | ".com", which indicates a name registered to a business for commercial use on the Internet. |
| Second-level domain | Variable-length names registered to an individual or organization for use on the Internet. These names are always based upon an appropriate top-level domain, depending on the type of organization or geographic location where a name is used. | "microsoft.com.", which is the second-level domain name registered to Microsoft by the Internet DNS domain name registrar. |
| Sub-domain | Additional names that an organization can create that are derived from the registered second-level domain name. These include names added to grow the DNS tree of names in an organization and divide it into departments or geographic locations. | "example.microsoft.com.", which is a fictitious subdomain assigned by Microsoft for use in documentation example names. |
For more information about the DNS domain names architecture, see the DNS domain names topic in the Windows 2000 online help.
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