As the internet grew, it became an essential part of how people talk to each other online. Most people who use the internet don’t even know what DNS is or how much it helps us. Without DNS, you can’t type a URL into your browser and go to any website.
IP addresses are how computers talk to each other. Because people can’t remember long strings of thousands of numbers. We can’t use IP addresses. Instead, we use domain names. It’s much easier to remember to type phoenixnap.com than 198.24.170.115 into your browser.
When you want to go to a website, your computer needs to know the exact IP address. It doesn’t care about the domain name.
DNS keeps track of every domain name and the IP address that goes with it. DNS (Domain name service) converts a domain name into an IP address when you enter a URL into your browser.
Simply a Domain name service is a service that connects domain names to the IP addresses that go with them.
DNS Service Types
Authoritative DNS: An authoritative DNS service allows developers to keep their public DNS names up to date. Then, it responds to DNS queries by turning domain names into IP addresses. So that computers can talk to each other. The authoritative DNS has the final say over a domain. Is in charge of giving the IP address information to recursive DNS servers. Amazon Route 53 is an authoritative DNS system.
Recursive DNS: Usually, clients don’t ask questions directly to authoritative DNS services. They often connect to a different kind of DNS service called a resolver or recursive DNS service. A recursive DNS service works like a hotel concierge. It doesn’t own any DNS records but acts as an intermediary who can get the DNS information on your behalf. If a recursive DNS has the DNS reference cached or stored for a while. It will answer the DNS query by giving the source or IP information. If not, it sends the question to one or more authoritative DNS servers so they can find the answer.
How does DNS work?
In the DNS resolution process, a hostname, like www.example.com. Is translated into a computer-friendly IP address. IP addresses are assigned to each internet-connected device. When a user wants to load a webpage. The address they type into their web browser (example.com) must be changed into a machine-friendly address. That tells the computer where to find the example.com webpage.
To understand how DNS resolution works, it’s essential to learn about the different pieces of hardware that a DNS query must go through. The Domain name service DNS lookup happens “behind the scenes” for the web browser. So the user’s computer only needs to make the initial request.
Why is DNS Cached?
DNS caching or flushing is a good way to cut down on the number of DNS queries that need to be sent to DNS nameservers. This speeds up the process of figuring out what a domain name is.
There are many places where caching takes place. This includes your computer and, in some cases, your router. All domain name service DNS servers have their own databases with information that has already been cached.
Step 1: Send a Domain Name Resolution Request
When you type www book writing services into a browser. Your computer asks for the IP address in order to load the page. Computers don’t know ahead of time where they can find the information they need, so they look in the DNS cache and any other source they can find
Step 2: Look for an IP address in your area
Before going outside, your computer checks the local DNS cache database to see. If you’ve already asked for the IP for that domain name. Every computer has a temporary cache that stores the most recent DNS requests and attempts to connect to online sources.
The page loads right away when the DNS cache has the IP address for the website you want to go to. This lookup is done faster with DNS cache because the computer already has the information it needs and doesn’t have to send the request to your ISP.
Step 3: Contact your ISP and its Recursive DNS server to resolve a domain name.
A computer’s local domain name service cache database does not always have all the information needed to resolve a domain name. In that case, the request goes to your Internet Service Provider (ISP) and its DNS server.
The resolver looks at its records to find the right IP address when it gets a request. When the necessary information is in the ISP server’s records, the computer gets the IP and connects to the website. If your ISP’s recursive DNS server can’t figure out the domain name, it contacts other DNS servers to get you the information. Because of this, they are called “recursive servers.” Every ISP has at least one secondary DNS server set up to ensure the service is available as much as possible.
Step 4: Ask DNS servers outside your network for an IP address.
ISP DNS resolvers are set up to ask other DNS servers for the correct mapping of IP addresses until they can give the information back to the person who asked for it. These are DNS queries that repeat.
When a DNS client sends this request, the first server that answers does not give the needed IP address. Instead, it sends the request to a lower-level DNS server, and that server sends it to another server, and so on until the IP address is fully resolved. In this process, there are a few stops.
- Root domain nameservers. Root servers do not connect IP addresses to domain names on their own. Instead, they keep track of all top-level domain (TLD) nameservers and show where they are. TLD is the last part of a domain name, like the.com at the end of phoenixnap.com or the.org at the end of www.technology.org. Root servers are important because they are where all DNS lookup requests start.
- Name servers for TLDs. The information for second-level domains like phoenixnap.com is stored on these servers. In the past, the root server pointed to where the TLD server was. The TLD server then has to send the request to the server with the information for the website we’re trying to reach.
- Authoritative nameserver. Requests to look up DNS information end up on authoritative servers. They tell the recursive DNS servers the IP address of the site. If the site has subdomains, the local Domain name service (DNS) server will ask the authoritative server for the IP address until it finally gets it.
Step 5: Get your IP address.
After sending multiple iterative DNS queries, the ISP’s recursive DNS server gets the IP address and sends it back to your computer. The browser can then get this IP from its cache and use it to connect to the website’s server.
When we look at it this way, the DNS lookup process seems to take a long time to finish. It takes milliseconds, or maybe a few more if the DNS record is not in the local cache. Users can’t tell the difference in each of the cases.
Conclusion:
An explanation of what a Domain Name System is and how it operates has been provided in this article. It went over the fundamental DNS functions as well as the steps that need to be taken before you can connect to an online server by utilizing the domain name of that server.
