Domain Name System is the term that is denoted as DNS and it is a hierarchical naming system that is built on a distributed database for computers, services as well as any resource that is connected to the internet or a private network. DNS associates various information with domain names assigned to each of the participating entities. Most importantly DNS translates domain names meaningful to humans into the numerical identifiers associated with networking equipment for the purpose of locating as well as addressing these devices worldwide.
An often used analogy that is used to explain the DNS is that it serves as the phone book for the Internet and this is by translating human friendly computer hostnames into IP addresses. DNS makes it possible for users to assign domain names to groups of Internet resources as well as users in a meaningful way, independent of each entity's physical location. Because of this the World Wide Web hyperlinks and Internet contact information can remain consistent and constant and this is despite the current internet routing arrangements changing or the participant uses a mobile device. Internet domain names are easier to remember as compared to IP addresses like 208.77.188.166 (IPv4) or 2001:db8:1f70::999:de8:7648:6e8 (IPv6).
The users can take advantage of this when they are reciting meaningful Uniform Resource Locators (URL's) and email addresses and this is without having to know how the computer actually locates them. The DNS distributes the responsibility of assigning domain names as well as mapping those names to IP addresses by designating authoritative name servers for each of the domains. Authoritative name servers are assigned to be responsible for their particular domains and in turn they are capable of assigning other authoritative name servers for their sub domains. The mechanism has made the Domain Name system distributed and fault tolerant and has also helped avoid the need for a single central register to be continually consulted as well as updated.
In general the Domain Name System is capable of storing other types of information that will include the list of mail servers that accept email for a given Internet domain. By providing a worldwide distributed keyword based redirection service, the DNS is an essential component of the functionality of the Internet. There are also other identifiers that will include RFID tags, International characters in email addresses and host names, UPC codes as well as host names and a variety of other identifiers could all potentially use Domain Name system. The Domain Name System servers also specify the technical functionality of this database service.
It also defines the protocol, a detailed definition of the data structures and communication exchanges used in DNS as part of the Internet Protocol Suite. In overall the Internet will maintain two principal namespaces namely the domain name hierarchy and he Internet protocol address system. The Domain Name System maintains the domain namespace as well as provides translation services between these two namespaces. All the Internet name servers and communication protocols implement the Domain Name System that stores the DNS records for a domain name like the address records, name server records as well as mail exchanger records.
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This article touched the basics of the topic. I have 2 more resources related to the above. They are dns server and dns servers . They are worth a read.
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