DNS

Domain Name System (DNS) is a system which translates easy to remember name (ie. cyberlovers.org) to a website's IP Addresses (192.0.2.1), allowing you to conect to websites wihtout having to remember IP addresses.

How it works

Whenever you send a request for in a URL (ie. "cyberlovers.org"), for example, in your web browser or ping request, your a computer performs a DNS lookup. Your computer then contacts a DNS resolver (normally your ISP's) which begins a recursive query by sending the request to DNS root servers. These root servers contains information for servers storing information on top level domains (ie. ".com" and ".gov") and will route query to the appropriate TLD server.  The TLD server then points the request to an authoritative DNS server responisble to storing information on specific domains (including your URL) and responds with the matching IP Address, letting you connect to a website without having to memorize an ip address.

DNS Records

The following is a list of information found in DNS:

A (Address): Associates a domain name with an IPv4 address.

AAAA (IPv6 Address): Associates a domain name with an IPv6 address.

CNAME (Canonical Name): Creates an alias for a domain name, letting you access the same domain name using a different name (ie. gmail.com --> mail.google.com).

MX (Mail Exchange): If an email server is being used, redirects the domain request to the email server.

TXT (Text): Arbitrary text data, generally used to verify domain ownership or setting up email authentication.

NS (Name Server): The authoritive DNS server containing the wanted domain.

SOA (Start of Authority): Contains administrative information about the wanted domain.