Domain Types

Domain names are used to identify autonomous areas of the World Wide Web under the control of a person, corporation or other entity.  These are used for gaining access to websites, email and other services.  Web domains are a listed on the Domain Name System to help locate servers around the globe.

Much like the file system on the Linux operating system, Web addresses start from a root that contains all domains.  First, there are top-level domains that include popular domains like domains .com, .info, .net, .edu, and .org – as well as special country code websites.

 

Explanation of a domain, root top level second level

Single Domain

For many people, you will probably only require one domain name.  We will be using SWAG to connect our server to the World Wide Web and this project is configured to use a single domain with sub-domains as a default.

Sub-Domains

When offering multiple independent services from your server – such as OwnCloud or Radarr – we can use sub-domains to separate these web applications into different URLs.

Using this example, radarr.example.com could direct you to the Radarr web application.

These are an excellent way to build a digital community and brand identity around the same domain name.  With this technique, we could host a primary website at example.com, as well as a Flarum forum at forum.example.com and a WordPress blog available at blog.example.com.

Multiple Domains

SWAG can configured to act as the access point for multiple different web domain names – such as example.com and example.org.  This makes it so you can run a personal and professional web domain from home using the same server.

Each of these domains will be listed under the same SSL certificate and therefore linked.