When a user accesses a distributed Internet service using a URL, the domain name of the URL is translated to the IP address of a server that is proximal to the user. Users take advantage of this when they use meaningful Uniform Resource Locators ( URLs) and e-mail addresses without having to know how the computer actually locates the services.Īn important and ubiquitous function of the DNS is its central role in distributed Internet services such as cloud services and content delivery networks. The DNS can be quickly and transparently updated, allowing a service's location on the network to change without affecting the end users, who continue to use the same hostname. Reliability, security, and privacy concerns spawned the use of the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) as well as numerous other protocol developments.Īn often-used analogy to explain the DNS is that it serves as the phone book for the Internet by translating human-friendly computer hostnames into IP addresses.

The Domain Name System originally used the User Datagram Protocol (UDP) as transport over IP. The DNS database is traditionally stored in a structured text file, the zone file, but other database systems are common. As a general purpose database, the DNS has also been used in combating unsolicited email (spam) by storing a real-time blackhole list (RBL). Although not intended to be a general purpose database, DNS has been expanded over time to store records for other types of data for either automatic lookups, such as DNSSEC records, or for human queries such as responsible person (RP) records. The most common types of records stored in the DNS database are for start of authority ( SOA), IP addresses ( A and AAAA), SMTP mail exchangers (MX), name servers (NS), pointers for reverse DNS lookups (PTR), and domain name aliases (CNAME). A DNS name server is a server that stores the DNS records for a domain a DNS name server responds with answers to queries against its database. Internet name servers and a communication protocol implement the Domain Name System. The Domain Name System maintains the domain name hierarchy and provides translation services between it and the address spaces. The Internet maintains two principal namespaces, the domain name hierarchy and the IP address spaces. It defines the DNS protocol, a detailed specification of the data structures and data communication exchanges used in the DNS, as part of the Internet protocol suite. The Domain Name System also specifies the technical functionality of the database service that is at its core. This mechanism provides distributed and fault-tolerant service and was designed to avoid a single large central database.

Network administrators may delegate authority over sub-domains of their allocated name space to other name servers. The Domain Name System delegates the responsibility of assigning domain names and mapping those names to Internet resources by designating authoritative name servers for each domain. The Domain Name System has been an essential component of the functionality of the Internet since 1985. Most prominently, it translates readily memorized domain names to the numerical IP addresses needed for locating and identifying computer services and devices with the underlying network protocols. It associates various information with domain names assigned to each of the associated entities. The Domain Name System ( DNS) is a hierarchical and distributed naming system for computers, services, and other resources in the Internet or other Internet Protocol (IP) networks.

Smart label creator database