My Domain

This facility can provide a mechanism for security and privacy management by logical or physical separation of DNS information for network-internal access (within an administrative domain, e.g., company) and access from an insecure, public network (e.g. the Internet).

Implementation of split-horizon DNS can be accomplished with hardware-based separation or by software solutions. Hardware-based implementations run distinct DNS server devices for the desired access granularity within the networks involved. Software solutions use either multiple DNS server processes on the same hardware or special server software with the built-in capability of discriminating access to DNS zone records. The latter is a common feature of many server software implementations of the DNS protocol (cf. Comparison of DNS server software) and is sometimes the implied meaning of the term split-horizon DNS, since all other forms of implementation can be achieved with any DNS server software.

Split-Horizon DNS and DNSSEC

Split-horizon DNS is designed to provide different authoritative answers to an identical query and DNSSEC is used to ensure verity of data returned by the Domain Name System. These two, apparently conflicting goals create the potential for confusion or false security alerts in poorly constructed networks. Research has produced recommendations to properly combine these two DNS features.^[1]