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Updated · Jan 27, 2023
Updated · Jan 26, 2023
If you have a website, chances are you’ve taken great pain to find a domain name that fits. You had to consider a number of factors in the process - but most importantly, you had to switch on your creativity mode.
Not an easy task to come up with exactly the name that 1) speaks for your business, 2) grabs the public's attention, and 3) is still available for registration with a decent price tag.
But have you ever wondered what’s behind that name? How does it work? The answer lies in finding out what DNS is.
This will tell us what actually happens behind the scenes when a visitor types your domain! If you’re curious, read on!
The name of your website is key. Why? It’s the door through which the public gets to know your business and your ideas. That unique name is called a domain name.
Hard numbers also tell a story about the importance of domain names. Just the fourth quarter of 2020 closed with 366.3 million domain name registrations across all top-level domains. Another research shows that the total number of websites is about two billion. That kind of speaks for itself.
We use domain names to:
… and anything else our creativity can inspire. We remember those names, we bookmark them or save them for later - plenty of options.
Web browsers, on the other hand, use a different approach to find that same information we search for online. They use what is called an Internet Protocol (IP) address - a numeric sequence assigned to each device.
The Domain Name System or DNS is simply a naming system. It translates each domain name to a unique IP address, so your web browser knows where to find the information you want.
Each device connected to the internet has an IP address, which allows you to find it and connect to it.
The Domain Name System has its own hierarchy.
There are 13 root servers operating globally, named with the letters from ‘A’ to ‘M’. They are managed by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN).
How does that work?
> First, the resolver looks for the designated DNS records into the local cache.
> If that doesn’t work, it looks into the domain’s authoritative servers.
> The next place to go is the root server, where the resolver can get the details of the corresponding TLD nameservers.
> Finally, this helps you find the IP address of the domain you are looking for. Now you can actually access the site...
Alright, we've established that computers communicate via IP addresses. Now we can easily understand what a DNS server is - a server that stores a database of IP addresses and their corresponding hostnames.
When you enter a certain domain in your browser, you actually send a query to the nameservers to look for its IP address. The domain’s server matches the IP address with the hostname, allowing you to access the requested domain name.
Once you try to access any domain in a browser or another application, you actually submit a query to certain DNS servers. The protocol that handles your request is called a DNS protocol and more specifically - User Datagram Protocol (UDP). It works on port 53 and it is used to send short messages. In case the response to your request is larger than 512 bytes, the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) will be used instead.
The request you send triggers a DNS lookup associated with the given hostname. We’ll look into this in a bit!
Now we have established some good ground. After all, we explained almost every term you can ever encounter that’s related to DNS.
Alright, let’s answer some more questions.
DNS is a name resolution service, which operates on a global scale - and on all operating systems. It maps a domain name to its corresponding IP address.
In the past, there used to be local host files that mapped hostnames to IP addresses. The DNS of today handles millions of IP addresses and it’s been the most widely used mapping system today.
When we type a domain in a browser, we trigger a DNS query. Then, in the blink of an eye, a sequence of events happens behind the scenes.
The entire DNS process goes through all the steps we mentioned in less than a second. However, the process can be and it is normally even shorter than that. At every stage of the process, the local cache is considered the first step of the way.
Cache is a powerful method to saving processing power, storage, and optimizing results. Your operating system, your internet services provider, the nameservers - all of them will check the local cache first. If the information is there, the IP address will be sent back and the process is completed.
Check out how DNS works diagram below:
When you register a domain, you also receive nameservers space from the registering company or you can get it from somewhere else. This space creates the DNS pointers for your domain and directs various requests towards your domain.
Those entries are called DNS records and your domain name needs at least a few of them in order to be reachable online. There are many optional records with various purposes. We’re going to look into some of the fundamental DNS record types as well as some of the most widely used ones.
Nameserver records - indicate which authoritative nameservers are responsible for handling your domain’s DNS zone records.
DNS A record - indicates the IP address of your host name.
CNAME record - a canonical name record, responsible for forwarding your domain to another name.
MX records - mail exchanger records indicate the mailserver responsible for your domain.
DNS TXT record - resource records providing the ability to associate your host name to human-readable text about a server, network, or other information.
The DNS zone records contain a few different bits of information, associated with your domain name:
There are various ways to check on the DNS records zone for your domain name:
Command: dig
Type of record: A, MX, TXT, NS, etc.
Domain name: type the domain you seek DNS lookup for
> dig A techjury.com
The result of this query should give you the IP address of techjury.net.
Again, you can use an online tool or type the following command in your command prompt:
Command: nslookup
Domain name: techjury.net
> nslookup techjury.net
Of course, there are good and not-so-good practices when we speak about DNS. Being the most widely used resolution system on the internet today, DNS is a subject of great interest. The intentions are also polarizing.
To better understand how DNS works, we suggest you get familiar with some of the most common good and bad practices - and how they can affect the performance of your domains. Read on and get yourself equipped with knowledge and tips on the matter!
Staring with the good guys:
Some bad practices:
There isn’t a silver bullet against such DNS attacks, unfortunately. However, you can monitor your DNS recursive server for an increase of queries to unique sub-domains or timeouts from a nameserver. This should ring a bell that something wrong is afoot.
Your best bet is to shortlist DNS providers that perform regular maintenance and monitoring of their DNS infrastructure.
We hope that you now have a better understanding of what is DNS, what it means for us as unique users of our mail, running our businesses online, sharing our interests with our fellow social media followers, etc.
If we managed to trigger your curiosity to explore further how DNS works, we did our job well!
Thanks and see you soon!
Iva Marinova
Hi, Iva here! Hosting expert at Techjury. With a background in intellectual property and a keen interest in research and analyzing, I’m happy to have the opportunity to share my thoughts with the world. Passionate for knowledge and movies, caring about the planet and a true rep of the Virgo zodiac!
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