Multiple Hosted Zones That Have the Same Name how does this work?

Question

Trying to make sense of this:

Multiple Hosted Zones That Have the Same Name

You can create more than one hosted zone that has the same name and add different records to each hosted zone. Route 53 assigns four name servers to every hosted zone, and the name servers are different for each of them. When you update your registrar's name server records, be careful to use the Route 53 name servers for the correct hosted zone—the one that contains the records that you want Route 53 to use when responding to queries for your domain. Route 53 never returns values for records in other hosted zones that have the same name.

I registered a new Domain in route53, it automatically created a public hosted zone.

Then I created another public hosted zone with the exact same name- and it let me do that.

Now I'm confused, I cant find where the registered domain is pointed to a zone. Does route53 balance across those two zones? If not how do I see which zone a registered domain is pointing to and how do i change it? Is it just what NS servers are set there? If I add Name Servers from both zones to the registered domain what will route53 do? use both zones?

Answer 1

Route 53 hosted zones and Route 53 domains (registrar) are two different services under the "Route 53" name. They are only loosely integrated.

In the Route 53 console, click "Registered Domains."

Select your domain.

The authoritative nameservers are the ones shown here.

These will correspond to the 4 nameservers on the hosted zone that is actually active for the domain. The other one is doing nothing.

Any time a hosted zone is created for a domain, it will always have 4 nameservers assigned to it that are different than the nameservers assigned to that same domain anywhere else in Route 53. These are populated into the NS records in the hosted zone when it's created. Changing the NS records in the hosted zone is technically possible but will not actually do anything other than make your hosted zone wrong. The original 4 assigned servers will still be the servers with your hosted zone loaded onto them.