The Domain Name System (DNS) is the backbone of the Internet. Without it, you wouldn’t be able to access websites or send email unless you memorized IP addresses. It’s kind of like a phone book for the Internet: it translates domain names into IP addresses so that networked devices can understand each other. In this article, we’ll explain how DNS works and why it’s important for understanding how the world wide web works.
What is the Domain Name System (DNS)?
The Domain Name System (DNS) is a hierarchical distributed naming system for computers, services and other resources connected to the Internet or a private network. The domain name system translates human-friendly computer hostnames into IP addresses. In order to achieve this, it must maintain data about that mapping. This data is stored in a set of interrelated databases called zones.
The Domain Name System was created in 1983 by Paul Mockapetris, who also designed BIND (Berkeley Internet Name Domain).
How does the Domain Name System (DNS) work?
The Domain Name System (DNS) is the backbone of the Internet. It’s what translates domain names into IP addresses, and vice versa. In other words, it’s how you get to websites like this one: you type in a URL or click on a link, which causes your computer to request information from one or more DNS servers that can help translate that hostname into an IP address (like “www2.website-name-here”).
The main purpose of DNS servers is to resolve domain names into IP addresses so that any given piece of information stored on multiple computers throughout the world can be accessed without having to remember which computer has what data stored on it (and without having all those different pieces of data stored in one place).
How are domain names registered?
The Domain Name System (DNS) is the system that allows you to type in a domain name, like example.com, and have it resolve to an IP address. When you register your own domain name, you are using a registrar who has been accredited by ICANN (the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers).
ICANN regulates who can become a registrar and what they can charge for registering domains; it also maintains the WHOIS database which contains information about all registered domains.
What are top-level domains?
The top-level domain (TLD) is the last part of a domain name, like .com or .org. There are many TLDs, including:
- com – Commercial organizations
- net – Network providers and related organizations
- edu – Educational institutions and other nonprofit organizations
There are also country code top-level domains (ccTLD), which identify their geographic location. These include .us for the United States and .uk for the United Kingdom. Each ccTLD is administered by an organization within its respective country’s government or registry system; these organizations have different requirements for registering websites with them than do generic TLDs like com or net
What is a DNS server?
A DNS server is a computer that stores information about domain names and their corresponding IP addresses. It’s the backbone of the Internet, but it can also be used by private parties or government institutions to block certain sites from being accessed by users.
The Domain Name System (DNS) was originally developed in 1983 at Stanford University for use on academic networks based on Unix operating systems like BSD and Linux. Today, most major operating systems support DNS services built into their core libraries or applications–even Microsoft Windows has built-in support!
The Domain Name System is the backbone of the Internet.
The Domain Name System (DNS) is the Internet’s phone book, translating domain names into IP addresses and vice versa. DNS is a distributed database that maintains information about all domain names and their corresponding IP addresses across the globe.
The hierarchical nature of DNS makes it easy for you to look up any website on the web: when you type in a domain name like “google.com,” your computer sends this request to its local DNS server which then looks up Google’s IP address in its local cache or database, before sending back an answer.
The Domain Name System is the backbone of the Internet. Without it, we wouldn’t be able to use our favorite websites or send emails to people around the world. The DNS is a distributed database that stores information about web addresses, allowing users to access resources by translating human-friendly domain names into IP addresses. This article has covered some of the basics about how this system works, including how domain names are registered and what top-level domains are used for.
