domain name system - Is it possible to simplify my website DNS records?

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Let's say I have mydomain.com and my
shared webhost server is 1.2.3.4. My domain registrar and webhosting company are 2
different entities.

Currently I have
my DNS records configured like this in my registrar DNS Management
section:

A
*.mydomain.com
1.2.3.4

A
mydomain.com
1.2.3.4


CNAME
ftp.mydomain.com
mydomain.com

CNAME
www.mydomain.com
mydomain.com

A
subdomain1.mydomain.com

1.2.3.4

A
subdomain2.mydomain.com
1.2.3.4

A
subdomainN.mydomain.com
1.2.3.4

I
have 2
questions/problems:

1)
Is there any way to simplify the sub-domain A records so that every time I need to add a
new sub-domain to my website I shouldn't have to create a new A record for it in the DNS
Management?

2) With
the current configuration when the user points to any sub-domain that don't exist (for
instance: idontexist.mydomain.com) a default page from cPanel is displayed. I suppose
this is the normal behavior? Or should it return a 404 error? If so, how can I make it
return a 404 error?

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class="normal">Answer

1. You've already done it; that
   * record covers all names not specifically
   defined.




2. That message is due to the
   domain being unconfigured, but the users are still getting sent to your server via the
   wildcard DNS entry. If there was no DNS covering that subdomain, then they wouldn't make
   it to your server for cpanel to error or to get a 404 at all; they'd get a browser error
   that the domain could not be
   found.

Since
all requests for subdomains will come to the web server, probably the best way for you
to handle this would be a friendly error page about nothing existing at that
location.