I have just leased a dedicated linux host. I have a ton of computer and Unix experience, but not so much in sys admin. I did not specify a name for the machine, and they gave me something like 'charliebrown01' as the machine name.

I have been reading up on DNS from many sources; none are exactly right for my situation. I have a pretty good idea how to set up the files on my own machine, though.

I understand that I set up a nameserver that will help me find other web sites from my machine. I give the name of the name server to my domain name registrar, associated with my domain names.

I know that, when somebody enters one of my domain names into their browser, their nameserver figures out if it knows how to find my site, and, if not, starts with the root domain, then the top level domain (TLD).

I have 2 questions:

1) how does the TLD know where to look for my domain names? Is it that the domain name registrar sends that info to the TLDs beforehand? Or does it just send my nameserver address, which thereafter communicates regularly with the TLD? what if I didn't tell the domain name registrar what nameserver to use for my other domains? would my nameserver communicate that info to the TLDs anyhow?

2) should I tell my dedicated host provider to change the name of the machine to something of the 'www.something.com' format, or can I just use it as I have it now? I don't yet have the domain name that I would use for this, if necessary.

I actually do know a lot of stuff, and am learning the rest very quickly.

The registrar should update the TLD authorative servers so they know which name server(s) is/are authorative for domain.net, all queries for host.domain.net then go to that server (unless cached by a closer server). If you didn't tell your registrar the details of your DNS then you'll just need to ask them to update their records with those details.
The real hostname of the machine doesn't really mean much. You typically have a hostname thats listed in your DNS as an 'A' record, with CNAME entries (aliases) for things like webhosts; like www.something.com.

HTH

Jamie...