Friends, today’s topic of our article is, “What is DNS“, or “What is a domain name system“, “What is the function of DNS” and how does this DNS work?
Today, any person, big or small, is using the internet through their mobile or computer. You may also visit different websites every day through the internet.
However, many of you may not be fully aware of what DNS is and what it does. Remember, the domain name system plays a very important role in accessing a website.
We unknowingly use this domain name system every day, but very few of us know about it.
But don’t worry, after reading today’s article in its entirety, you will be able to understand clearly what DNS means.
We all know that computers cannot understand the language spoken by humans, but computers can understand the language of numbers.
And in this way, even if we have to visit a website on the Internet, we still need some numbers, which are called IP Addresses.
In general, it is almost impossible for each website to remember a different number of IP addresses.
Therefore, this DNS (Domain Name System) is used for the purpose of easily remembering the name of each website so that it can be easily accessed.
With this, the names created by words are easily accessed by pointing directly to the IP addresses of the websites. It is easier to remember the name of any website than a straight IP address.
Below, we will know in detail what the domain name system is, what is the full form of DNS and what is the function of DNS.
How the Domain Name System Works
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| What is DNS |
What is DNS?
The full form of DNS is the “Domain name system“. It is a common system that can be simply called the phonebook of the Internet.
This DNS translates domain names into IP addresses so that a web browser can access and load Internet resources.
This domain name system (DNS) is used to remember the IP addresses of different websites in the same way that we use the phonebook to remember the mobile numbers of different people.
If the definition of a domain name system is straightforward, it can be said,
“It’s a system that translates IP addresses or numbers into domain names so that the web browser understands which web page you want to access on the Internet.”
With this, a user can easily remember the address (name) of the website through the domain name, because I have already said that it is much easier to remember the domain name than to remember the IP addresses.
Each device connected to the Internet has its own unique IP address and is used by other machines to locate the device.
Humans use domain names to obtain information online, such as “www.bidyapremi.com” or “Google.com“.
However, a web browser basically completes the communication through IP addresses.
And so, the job of DNS is to translate domain names into IP addresses so that the browser can load different internet resources.
Due to the domain name system server (DNS server) we have those complex IP addresses such as 104.21.51.181 (IPv6) and more complex but new alphanumeric IP addresses such as 2700:cb00:2548:1::c689:d7a2 (IPv6), do not need to remember.
Hopefully, you have a clear idea of what a domain name system is and what DNS does.
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History of DNS
Many years ago, when the size of the Internet was very small, very few websites and devices were active and people had to remember their IP addresses.
And remembering the different IP addresses of different websites was a matter of great difficulty.
Thus, when the size of this network gradually becomes much larger and thousands of websites become active, it becomes impossible to remember thousands of IP addresses.
The Domain Name System was invented by Paul Mockapetris in the 1980s as a solution to this problem.
This discovery made it possible to give every website a human-readable name, making it easier to remember website names.
However, you can still access any website with its IP address if you want, but the chances of remembering the IP address of the website are much less.
How does the domain name system work?
Everything connected to the Internet – websites, laptops, computers, mobile phones, smart TVs, etc. – each has a unique IP address. It can easily find other devices connected to the Internet.
These are the IP addresses, some of the unique strings of numbers that look something like this – “142.124.249.187”.
Now think about it, if you have to memorize these long sequences in order to visit your favorite websites, how hard it will be to remember the names of those websites.
And, because domain names have been invented, this problem can be solved. Domain names allow us to provide a straightforward name for our website using the English alphabet.
And the job of this DNS (Domain Name System) is to translate the domain names set for your website into the IP addresses of the website so that your device can be pointed in the right direction or path.
A domain name and its exact matching IP address are called “DNS record“.
How does DNS work?
Let us know below, step by step, how DNS works. Suppose you want to visit our website, “www.bidyapremi.com”.
- You type the domain name (www.bidyapremi.com) of our website into your computer or mobile web browser and press “Go” or “Enter”.
- Now the first task of your web browser will be to find the IP address associated with the domain name you have given.
- In this case, it will be seen that you have already visited our website from this same browser. If DNS records are found in your computer’s DNS cache, the additional DNS lookup process will be skipped and you will be taken directly to our website www.bidyapremi.com.
- If no DNS records are found on your computer, a request will be sent to your local DNS server first. This is basically your Internet provider’s server which is called “resolving nameserver”.
- If the records are not cached in the resolving nameserver, then the request to find the DNS records of the domain is forwarded to the “root nameserver”.
- Now when the DNS record is found in the root nameservers, then it is cached by your computer.
- Now that the DNS records have been found at the end, now it will be possible to establish a connection with the server in which our website is stored and the website “www.bidyapremi.com” will be displayed on the computer.
What is a name server?
A name server which is often called “nameserver” is a special type of server (server) where every DNS record of a domain name is stored.
The job of this name server is to provide the DNS information of the domain to anyone who is requesting it.
Nameservers are primarily managed by your domain name registrar or hosting provider.
Conclusion
So friends, through today’s article, we have learned about the “Domain Name System“, what DNS does and how it works.
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