For concreteness, these instructions assume that you're creating x.org, and that you have two computers running DNS servers, the first server on IP address 1.8.7.200 and the second server on IP address 1.8.7.201.
Second-level names in .com etc. are not free. You will need to pay for the name. Current fees (October 2002) are around US$10/year, depending on which company you use to register the name. These instructions assume that you use Joker to register the name.
1. Tell your DNS servers that they should answer questions for x.org, and that they should announce 1.8.7.200 and 1.8.7.201 as the DNS server addresses for x.org:
cd /service/tinydns/root
./add-ns x.org 1.8.7.200
./add-ns x.org 1.8.7.201
make
2. Register your email address with Joker: on http://www.joker.com, type your email address under ``Register yourself'' and click Go. You will receive email confirmation from Joker showing you an account-activation URL. Visit that URL to receive your Joker password.
3. Log in to Joker using your email address and password, and go to the Joker Servicezone. Find Contacts and click on Create. Fill out the form to register your ``cno'' (com, net, org) contact information.
4. In the Servicezone, find Nameservers and click on Create. Fill out the form to register server name a.ns.x.org with IP address 1.8.7.200. Do it again to register server name b.ns.x.org with IP address 1.8.7.201. Make sure that you put the server names a.ns, b.ns, etc. in exactly the order of the add-ns commands.
(A big problem here has now been fixed. The problem was that Network Solutions, which manages .com etc., insisted on IP uniqueness: if anyone had already registered the same IP address for another server name, you wouldn't be allowed to use the IP address. However, company representative Matt Larson wrote the following on 4 April 2002:
The limitation of only one name server (i.e., A record) per IP address was an unfortunate Registry-based restriction that was removed on January 19 of this year. ... There were several reasons for relaxing this restriction, not the least of which was that there wasn't a good reason for it in the first place. An immediate positive benefit is that it's no longer possible for someone to hold a given IP address hostage by registering a name server at that address.Another problem with IP uniqueness is that it often forces glueless delegations, which slow down and sometimes destroy DNS lookups.)
5. On the Joker home page, click on Register Domains, and type in x.org. Follow the instructions to register and pay for x.org, using the DNS servers a.ns.x.org and b.ns.x.org, and using the contact information that you registered.