With the prompt and gracious assistance of Vito, I was able to solve a two year old mystery concerning subdomains here:

http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?threadid=146745 .

Now I have a working subdomain at http://forums.mydomain.com .

But now I want http://www.forums.mydomain.com to work (note the addition of "www.").

Does anyone have a solution in simple terms?

Here's a working example of using www with a subdomain: http://www.media.ford.com . How do they do it?

Is this the right forum?

Whatever they are doing they are redirecting it to:

http://media.ford.com/

Adland, I'd like to know how they do that, too.

Meanwhile, here's another example:

http://www.asmjournal.freeservers.com/

It seems it was answered in the other thread...

create a "www.forum.domain.com" subdomain and forward it to "forum.domain.com".. it's not too hard :)

Originally posted by gooroo
create a "www.forum.domain.com" subdomain and forward it to "forum.domain.com".. it's not too hard :)

I appreciate the well-intentioned guesswork, but this doesn't work for all kinds of reasons.

If www.forum.domain.com worked, then I wouldn't need forum.domain.com at all, and I wouldn't need the redirection.

While "forum.domain.com" is a subdomain, "www.forum.domain.com" isn't -- it's an extra level.

If one tries to create "www.forum.domain.com" in cPanel, "forum.domain.com" is created instead.

If one creates "forum.domain.com" in cPanel and then tries to create "www.forum.domain.com ," one gets an error message that "forum.domain.com" already exists.

Thanks for the try, though.

I don't really see the need for doing this unless you're trying to deceive someone. i.e., www.paypal.ssl.com

But you might try asking here:

http://www.acmebw.com/askmrdns/

He comes close to answering your question here:

http://www.acmebw.com/askmrdns/archive.php?category=87&question=316

Originally posted by cove
I appreciate the well-intentioned guesswork, but this doesn't work for all kinds of reasons.

If www.forum.domain.com worked, then I wouldn't need forum.domain.com at all, and I wouldn't need the redirection.

While "forum.domain.com" is a subdomain, "www.forum.domain.com" isn't -- it's an extra level.

If one tries to create "www.forum.domain.com" in cPanel, "forum.domain.com" is created instead.

If one creates "forum.domain.com" in cPanel and then tries to create "www.forum.domain.com ," one gets an error message that "forum.domain.com" already exists.

Thanks for the try, though.

Well, I'm not familiar with cPanel, but assmuming it works a bit like the others, go to manage forum.domain.com, and add a DNS entry (CNAME) for www.forum.domain.com, pointing it to forum.domain.com.

Then, as was stated in the other thread, add a ServerAlias to your Virtualhost directive, or its equivalent in cPanel.

That should work.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by adland
I don't really see the need for doing this unless you're trying to deceive someone. i.e., www.paypal.ssl.com

I think you are missing the point. I don't think that www.india.ford.com or www.media.ford.com or www.asmjournal.freeservers.com is trying to deceive anyone, and neither am I. Please forgive me if I resent the (perhaps unintended) implication.

In any event, thanks for the help.

Thanks, Prime, for the advice!

The solution that is best for me was added to the other thread.

Using WHM (since I am a (private) reseller), set up a new account: forums.mydomain.com . As described by Esr Tek, "whammo!" It is done.