Without DNS, there is no Internet. It is the key ingredient that makes domain resolving possible. We use DNS to access sites, send and receive emails when we use applications. All-day, every day! Show DNS or a Domain Name System is an amazing technology. You can see DNS as a hierarchy system of domains/hostnames and IP addresses. It helps us open internet addresses without a hustle. We easily write the domain name and the DNS has the job to find the IP of the domain we wrote. Just like the phone book on your mobile phone, you need to find Mike, so you write “Mike”, and you don’t need to remember his actual number, great isn’t it? DNS is an essential part of the Internet. It manages to translate all the inquiries into IP addresses, and like this, it can identify different devices that are connected to the network. Apart from translating hostnames to IP addresses (A and AAAA DNS records), DNS also has many different functions like defining port in use, connecting services to domains, authentication of emails, and many more. There are 50+ types of DNS records with different functionality. DNS serves for:
DNS historyBefore the Internet, there were different networks like ARPANET, SATNET, and many packet radio ones. The problem was that there was not a single united network. There was a need to solve this problem, and the solution was the Domain Name System (DNS). The person who got the task to create it was Paul Mockapetris. His team needed to find a way to have IP addresses and hostnames aligned. A centralized file called HOSTS.TXT matched the first existing sites to IP addresses, but this was not a solution that could handle millions of sites. After several years of work, in 1983, the DNS was created and joined the Internet Standards of Internet Engineering Task Force in 1986. The founding documents of it were RFC 1034 and the second RFC 1035. There you can find information about the protocol, its functionality, and data types. A later update of DNS allowed dynamic zone transfers (IXFR) and the use of NOTIFY. The NOTIFY mechanism gave the Primary DNS servers the power to “notify” the Secondary about the changes in the DNS records. Now the Secondary DNS servers could update when a change occurs in the Primary and get only the change. And another critical moment was the creation of the DNSSEC and its version from 1999 (RFC 2535). It is a security layer that defends the DNS from poison attacks. Here you can read more about the History of DNS. Components of DNS. What does DNS include?
How does Domain Name System work? Example:Let’s explain a little bit more about how DNS actually works. The process has the following steps: 1. Information request 2. Recursive DNS servers 3. Root name servers 4. Top-Level Domain (TLD) name servers 5. Authoritative DNS servers Premium Authority DNS service - Try for free 6.
Retrieve the record 7. The final answer Commonly used DNS recordsThe DNS records represent instructions and information about a specific domain name. A DNS query is initiated to find such information, and a different DNS record could be pursued depending on the user, query, or application. There are a lot of different DNS record types, and each of them serves a precise purpose. Here are some of the most commonly used DNS records:
How does Domain Name System affects the web performance?Recursive DNS servers are able to store the DNS data (like A records and IP addresses) received from DNS queries in their DNS cache for a limited amount of time. That way, the servers are capable of providing quick replies if requests for the same IP address appear. For that reason, caching DNS information is very efficient. When multiple users request to access the same website, the local DNS server would have to complete the entire DNS resolution process just once. Afterward, it will answer the rest of the requests with the information in its DNS cache. As we mentioned, the DNS data is available only for a specific amount of time, determined by the TTL (Time-To-Live) value. Administrators have the responsibility to set it, and it could be different depending on their preferences. Longer TTL helps decrease the load on the Authoritative DNS servers. On the other hand, shorter TTL will guarantee more accurate answers. DNS SECURITYOver time, cybercriminals found vulnerabilities in the Domain Name System (DNS) and managed to use them to their own advantage. The most common threat is called DNS spoofing (DNS poisoning), where falsified data is distributed to the Recursive DNS servers. Usually, the false information directs user requests to a source pretending to be the Authoritative DNS server. So, as a result, the requests are typically directed to a fake website. Criminals use tricky titles and aim to convince users that the website is genuine, so they can gain access to the user’s personal details. Sometimes, for instance, they substitute a character in the domain name with a similar-looking character, like replacing the letter l with the number 1. If the user doesn’t notice the difference, the risk of becoming a victim of a phishing attack is relatively high. The best option for boosting your DNS security and minimizing the risk of becoming a victim of DNS spoofing (DNS poisoning) is to implement DNSSEC (DNS Security Extensions). With it, the DNS data (DNS records) is signed cryptographically. ConclusionIt is a long process, but actually, it takes fractions of a second. It can be even faster if you use reliable DNS servers from ClouDNS. Check our DNS services and choose the one that best suits you. 30-day Free Trial for Premium Anycast DNS hosting (Visited 14,662 times, 1 visits today) Hi, I’m Martin Pramatarov. I have two degrees, a Technician of Computer Networks and an MBA (Master of Business Administration). My passion is storytelling, but I can’t hide my nerdish side too. I never forgot my interest in the Hi-tech world. I have 10 years and thousands of articles written about DNS, cloud services, hosting, domain names, cryptocurrencies, hardware, software, AI, and everything in between. I have seen the Digital revolution, the Big migration to the cloud, and I am eager to write about all the exciting new tech trends in the following years. AI and Big Data are here already, and they will completely change the world! I hope you enjoy my articles and the excellent services of ClouDNS! Enjoy this article? Don't forget to share. Tags: Authoritative DNS server, DNS, DNS service, Domain Name System, IP address, Name servers, Record A, Recursive DNS server, Root name server, servers, TLD, TLD name server Last modified: August 29, 2022 |