Question

What is DNS?

How does DNS work in relation to ROOT, TLD and ANS NSO SERVERS.

How does DNS affect our lives today?

Answer 1

1.

The Domain Name Systems (DNS) is the phonebook of the Internet. Humans access information online through domain names, like nytimes.com or espn.com. Web browsers interact through Internet Protocol (IP) addresses. DN S translates domain names to IP addresses so browsers can load Internet resources.

Each device connected to the Internet has a unique IP address which other machines use to find the device. DNS servers eliminate the need for humans to memorize IP addresses such as 192.168.1.1 (in IPv4), or more complex newer alphanumeric IP addresses such as 2400:cb00:2048:1::c629:d7a2 (in IPv6).

2.

The process of DNS resolution involves converting a hostname (such as www.example.com) into a computer-friendly IP address (such as 192.168.1.1). An IP address is given to each device on the Internet, and that address is necessary to find the appropriate Internet device - like a street address is used to find a particular home. When a user wants to load a webpage, a translation must occur between what a user types into their web browser (example.com) and the machine-friendly address necessary to locate the example.com webpage.

In order to understand the process behind the DNS resolution, it’s important to learn about the different hardware components a DNS query must pass between. For the web browser, the DNS lookup occurs “ behind the scenes” and requires no interaction from the user’s computer apart from the initial request.

There are 4 DNS servers involved in loading a webpage:

• DNS recursor - The recursor can be thought of as a librarian who is asked to go find a particular book somewhere in a library. The DNS recursor is a server designed to receive queries from client machines through applications such as web browsers. Typically the recursor is then responsible for making additional requests in order to satisfy the client’s DNS query.
• Root nameserver - The root server is the first step in translating (resolving) human readable host names into IP addresses. It can be thought of like an index in a library that points to different racks of books - typically it serves as a reference to other more specific locations.
• TLD nameserver - The top level domain server (TLD) can be thought of as a specific rack of books in a library. This nameserver is the next step in the search for a specific IP address, and it hosts the last portion of a hostname (In example.com, the TLD server is “com”).
• Authoritative nameserver - This final nameserver can be thought of as a dictionary on a rack of books, in which a specific name can be translated into its definition. The authoritative nameserver is the last stop in the nameserver query. If the authoritative name server has access to the requested record, it will return the IP address for the requested hostname back to the DNS Recursor (the librarian) that made the initial request.

3.

The Internet is made up of nearly unlimited websites or host names, such as www.example.com. Each host name is able to communicate with your Internet-enabled device with the help of an Internet protocol, or IP address. These IP addresses are numeric, such as 172.16.254.1, but who is going to remember that? Thanks to DNS, you can type www.example.com into your browser instead of the IP address. In turn, your device can communicate with others anywhere in the world, and do all the wonderful Internet things you enjoy.

At first, Internet users could check their email, visit web pages and not much else.

News alert: times have drastically changed.

Today, we use the Internet for so many activities that it has become a necessity in our daily lives. The DNS-powered Internet allows us to shop online, pay bills, and download software, music and games, to name a few.

As more and more services rely on the Internet, DNS is increasingly important. The rate in which various systems are using DNS is exponential. There are millions more today than there were even four years ago.

Consider the infamous cloud: companies and individuals can use it for just about anything. Entertainment (Netflix, YouTube, Vimeo), document sharing (Google Docs), web-based email, bookkeeping, file storage, social media, banking—they’re all possible via cloud-based programs, and DNS servers are a must to keep all of these services integrated.