Programming Answer: How to you create a wildcard DNS entry in Mac OS X 10.6 Server DNS GUI?

The GUI does not accept "*". How, through the GUI, do I create a wildcard subdomain?

Where is the Bind installation in the OSX 10.6 Server filesystem?

From serverfault Chris Altman

The local for the DNS zone details is:
cd /var/named/zones/

To add the wildcard
sudo vi db.example.org.zone.apple

Then
example.org. IN NS ns.example.com. * IN A 192.168.1.10 www IN A 192.168.1.10

Add the "* IN A 192.168.1.10" to the zone.apple file.

Chealion : FYI: This would be blown away by any GUI edits.

From Chris Altman
Anyone know the best approach for doing this? Even though the file is edited in terminal once a user goes into the GUI it will write over the file again. Any ideas?

tegbains : We use MacPorts and use BIND 9 from there and manage it with Webmin

From Aaron Hoffman
With Mac OS X 10.6 Apple has made it much easier to avoid blowing away your DNS edits from the command line:

In /var/named/ you'll see a list of your zones in the format db.domain.tld. by default they will only contain the text:
```
;THE FOLLOWING INCLUDE WAS ADDED BY SERVER ADMIN. PLEASE DO NOT REMOVE.
$INCLUDE /var/named/zones/db.DOMAIN.TLD.zone.apple
```
The *.zone.apple file is updated and managed by Server Admin, so any changes made there by hand will be blown away by any GUI changes. What you want to do is make your changes to this file, so add your wildcard to this file instead. Example:
```
;THE FOLLOWING INCLUDE WAS ADDED BY SERVER ADMIN. PLEASE DO NOT REMOVE.
$INCLUDE /var/named/zones/db.DOMAIN.TLD.zone.apple
*.domain.TLD IN A 192.168.1.10
```
From Chealion

Programming Answer