DNS Servers
text size AAA Published December 22, 2011
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While it might be easier to simply leave computer programming and web design to professionals, if you want to create a strong Internet presence, you need to know how it all works too. From servers to keywords, languages to web pages, there might be a million things to learn over the course of your lifetime, but just trying to grasp the idea of computers and their abilities can help you become a better Internet marketer and a better business person. Even those who simply want to use their computer for personal websites can and will benefit from learning more about the marvelous world of the Internet and how it can work for you.
DNS servers are a good place to start. This is a Domain Name System in which the naming system of the Internet begins. While most of us think of the Internet in terms of the website addresses we have bookmarked and memorized, the Internet is actually a structure of numbers and dots when you learn to look behind the scenes. In realizing and learning this, you can begin to appreciate just how complicated the WWW can be.
The hierarchical structure of the naming system includes the names of computers, Internet resources, as well as services that are based on the Web. This systems works to translate the names of the domains into numbers the actual computers can understand and link together. Some might call the Domain Name System a sort of phone book for those who use the Internet. When you have a website name, like www.johndoe.com, this might actually translate into 121.33.123.166. Since this is much more complicated to remember, the Internet has also been given a system of words and letters to use as domain names.
The Domain Name System randomly distributes these numbers to websites and these numbers allow the addresses to be mapped easily in order to be linked with other sites, search engines, etc. These DNS servers can also store other types of information like the mail servers which are able to accept mail for an Internet domain name. In a very real sense, the DNS servers are what link the Internet and hold it together. Without this system, there would be no 'web' for the Web.
While mostly hidden from the eyes of everyday users, DNS servers are hard at work in every step of the Internet experience. When you send an email, for example, you are typing in the email address in the email 'To' box of your email program. This address is then read when it is sent through the Internet, and turned into an IP address, like the previous example. In doing so, the process of just sending an email becomes a complicated translation of words into numbers - all without you even realizing it. This way, the computer at the other end of the transaction can ascertain where the mail came from and then can send a reply to the same location.
Many people who just learn about the idea of DNS servers don't realize what a large task this can be. Since there are millions and millions of Internet users at any given time, the DNS servers have to translate millions and millions of domain names into IP addresses. And while this still may not sound like too much for a computer to do, realize that each email correspondence can even include multiple translations, this makes the DNS servers work hard to find and to translate any one of the billions of IP addresses.
A single person can actually make hundreds of requests to DNS servers in a single day, depending on how much they work on their computer. This means that if you multiply this throughout just one household, you might have thousands of requests in a given day. Sometimes else that you need to keep in mind is that the IP addresses of email addresses and websites can change on a daily basis, making the translation process more difficult each day - or at least different from the day before.
Plus, when you consider just how many new websites are being added and subtracted each day, you can see just how much work DNS servers can do. Behind these computers and servers are people too who are making sure the IP addresses are up to date and accurate.
DNS servers are databases in which the information of the Internet is stored. These databases are extensive as the amount of information stored is also extensive. Within these databases are many millions of IP addresses that will need to be assigned to different domain names as needed.
The DNS servers system was actually first created in 1983 once the initial Internet systems were beginning to be created. Once the TCP/IP system was in tact, there needed to be a way to create computer language that could then translate information in a quick and in an accurate fashion. At the time, the DNS servers would require that the computer retrieve a file called HOSTS.TXT from another computer in order to get the IP address number they required. This is not the case anymore.
The structure of the DNS servers works like this. First there is a tree of domain names that are within the domain name space. Each of the leaves of the tree contains resource records which will store the information that is associated with the domain name. From these leaves are zones which are smaller parts of each leaf. These zones include other leaves which then are named into name servers. The administration of these zones can be divided among many people and services, depending on the needs for that particular zone.
There are a number of different parts to the domain name. Though you might already realize this, things are more complicated as you add in more details to the domain naming. The top level domain is actually the suffix of the domain name - i.e. .gov, .com. The middle part of a domain name is called the sub domain. This might be the name of the website or the name of whatever the domain owner wants it to be named for. And the prefix of the web address is the hostname which is the domain name that has one of more IP addresses - i.e. www.
It is the nodes of this DNS system that include the DNS servers. Within each domain and sub domain, there will be one or more DNS servers. This allows the servers to publish information about the name servers and the domains.
In order for you to 'talk' with DNS servers, you just need an IP address, or internet protocol. This will help you to send the information you need to send to the server, while also allowing you to view the web page you might want to view from your personal computer.
There are a number of ways you might want to choose a domain name for your company or for your personal use. While you might never see how the DNS servers handle your web address, the human side of the domain name generation is far more important on your end. A good domain name will be one that is simple and one that is short. When you create a domain name that is too long, you can make things more complicated for the search engines to find and for your customers to type.
Try to choose a domain name that is going to remind the web visitor what your site contains for them. Ideally, you will want your website domain name to be the name of your company or of your product, but even if this is not the case, there are other ways to include your proper business name. You might want to try shortening the name to make it easier or sound it out with acronyms or with phonetic spellings. The only trick with this kind of name changing is that you might confuse some customer who might not 'get' it.
There are numerous different styles for domain names. The most popular format is www.WEBNAME.com. But this is far from the only one available. You might want to choose a domain name with .gov or .edu or some other suffix at the end. This will give your site more validity - of course, you really will have to be a part of the government or the education system to use these. You might also see that some domain names don't include a prefix.
When you are choosing a domain name, you will need to find something unique. This way, it can be easily recognized and it will be recognized by the DNS servers as a unique IP address. If you go to any number of domain name registrars, you will be able to try out a list of potential domain names in order to see whether or not the site name is available for you to use.
Something to keep in mind when choosing your domain name, if you are using your own hosting service, that will be a part of your domain name in some way. Thus, if you have a hosting service that has a less than professional name, you might want to use a hosting service that has a more reasonable name to represent your interests.
Once you have the domain name in place, you will want to remember that the DNS servers are responsible for handling requests for it. The DNS servers will be accepting requests from programs to convert names for domains into IP addresses or the servers will accept requests from other name servers to follow the same process.
Whenever DNS servers get a request, there are several things which can happen. First of all the DNS servers can return an error message if the domain name is invalid. These messages can occur when the domain name has been turned off or if it has been cancelled. These messages also occur when there is a typo in the domain name address. DNS servers can also suggest an IP address which may be able to do the domain name translation instead of that server. At times, the process may need to be taken over by another of the many DNS servers available, and the user of the computer will be alerted. Other times, the DNS servers might need to contact other name servers to finish their tasks. But most of the time, the DNS servers will answer the requests with the right IP address as it might already know what you need.
Within the process and the structure of DNS servers are the root servers which make everything possible. These servers are available in all corners of the planet, helping to ensure that the necessary information can be accessed from anywhere at anytime. These servers are easy for the DNS servers to contact as they are all linked. Even if one of the servers is down, the DNS servers can just move onto the next one on their internal list.
This process is essential in order to hook up a user to an actual website. If the user tries to connect to a website, but the IP address is invalid, they will not be able to access the site. This spells trouble if you want customers to visit your site. It's a good idea to make sure your IP address is functional each and every day to ensure your site visitors aren't greeted with an error message.
Since there are so many DNS servers working at the same time, the process has to be efficient. Usually, these servers work in large bunches, called caches to help distribute the information in a timely manner. Sometimes, you might encounter issues with the caching, but reloading the IP address or trying your request again will generally help to clear the cache for your request.
You may never actually need to know anything more about DNS servers than you do now, but knowing more places where your website might have troubles can help you more quickly diagnose problems before they become catastrophes.
DNS servers are a good place to start. This is a Domain Name System in which the naming system of the Internet begins. While most of us think of the Internet in terms of the website addresses we have bookmarked and memorized, the Internet is actually a structure of numbers and dots when you learn to look behind the scenes. In realizing and learning this, you can begin to appreciate just how complicated the WWW can be.
The hierarchical structure of the naming system includes the names of computers, Internet resources, as well as services that are based on the Web. This systems works to translate the names of the domains into numbers the actual computers can understand and link together. Some might call the Domain Name System a sort of phone book for those who use the Internet. When you have a website name, like www.johndoe.com, this might actually translate into 121.33.123.166. Since this is much more complicated to remember, the Internet has also been given a system of words and letters to use as domain names.
The Domain Name System randomly distributes these numbers to websites and these numbers allow the addresses to be mapped easily in order to be linked with other sites, search engines, etc. These DNS servers can also store other types of information like the mail servers which are able to accept mail for an Internet domain name. In a very real sense, the DNS servers are what link the Internet and hold it together. Without this system, there would be no 'web' for the Web.
While mostly hidden from the eyes of everyday users, DNS servers are hard at work in every step of the Internet experience. When you send an email, for example, you are typing in the email address in the email 'To' box of your email program. This address is then read when it is sent through the Internet, and turned into an IP address, like the previous example. In doing so, the process of just sending an email becomes a complicated translation of words into numbers - all without you even realizing it. This way, the computer at the other end of the transaction can ascertain where the mail came from and then can send a reply to the same location.
Many people who just learn about the idea of DNS servers don't realize what a large task this can be. Since there are millions and millions of Internet users at any given time, the DNS servers have to translate millions and millions of domain names into IP addresses. And while this still may not sound like too much for a computer to do, realize that each email correspondence can even include multiple translations, this makes the DNS servers work hard to find and to translate any one of the billions of IP addresses.
A single person can actually make hundreds of requests to DNS servers in a single day, depending on how much they work on their computer. This means that if you multiply this throughout just one household, you might have thousands of requests in a given day. Sometimes else that you need to keep in mind is that the IP addresses of email addresses and websites can change on a daily basis, making the translation process more difficult each day - or at least different from the day before.
Plus, when you consider just how many new websites are being added and subtracted each day, you can see just how much work DNS servers can do. Behind these computers and servers are people too who are making sure the IP addresses are up to date and accurate.
DNS servers are databases in which the information of the Internet is stored. These databases are extensive as the amount of information stored is also extensive. Within these databases are many millions of IP addresses that will need to be assigned to different domain names as needed.
The DNS servers system was actually first created in 1983 once the initial Internet systems were beginning to be created. Once the TCP/IP system was in tact, there needed to be a way to create computer language that could then translate information in a quick and in an accurate fashion. At the time, the DNS servers would require that the computer retrieve a file called HOSTS.TXT from another computer in order to get the IP address number they required. This is not the case anymore.
The structure of the DNS servers works like this. First there is a tree of domain names that are within the domain name space. Each of the leaves of the tree contains resource records which will store the information that is associated with the domain name. From these leaves are zones which are smaller parts of each leaf. These zones include other leaves which then are named into name servers. The administration of these zones can be divided among many people and services, depending on the needs for that particular zone.
There are a number of different parts to the domain name. Though you might already realize this, things are more complicated as you add in more details to the domain naming. The top level domain is actually the suffix of the domain name - i.e. .gov, .com. The middle part of a domain name is called the sub domain. This might be the name of the website or the name of whatever the domain owner wants it to be named for. And the prefix of the web address is the hostname which is the domain name that has one of more IP addresses - i.e. www.
It is the nodes of this DNS system that include the DNS servers. Within each domain and sub domain, there will be one or more DNS servers. This allows the servers to publish information about the name servers and the domains.
In order for you to 'talk' with DNS servers, you just need an IP address, or internet protocol. This will help you to send the information you need to send to the server, while also allowing you to view the web page you might want to view from your personal computer.
There are a number of ways you might want to choose a domain name for your company or for your personal use. While you might never see how the DNS servers handle your web address, the human side of the domain name generation is far more important on your end. A good domain name will be one that is simple and one that is short. When you create a domain name that is too long, you can make things more complicated for the search engines to find and for your customers to type.
Try to choose a domain name that is going to remind the web visitor what your site contains for them. Ideally, you will want your website domain name to be the name of your company or of your product, but even if this is not the case, there are other ways to include your proper business name. You might want to try shortening the name to make it easier or sound it out with acronyms or with phonetic spellings. The only trick with this kind of name changing is that you might confuse some customer who might not 'get' it.
There are numerous different styles for domain names. The most popular format is www.WEBNAME.com. But this is far from the only one available. You might want to choose a domain name with .gov or .edu or some other suffix at the end. This will give your site more validity - of course, you really will have to be a part of the government or the education system to use these. You might also see that some domain names don't include a prefix.
When you are choosing a domain name, you will need to find something unique. This way, it can be easily recognized and it will be recognized by the DNS servers as a unique IP address. If you go to any number of domain name registrars, you will be able to try out a list of potential domain names in order to see whether or not the site name is available for you to use.
Something to keep in mind when choosing your domain name, if you are using your own hosting service, that will be a part of your domain name in some way. Thus, if you have a hosting service that has a less than professional name, you might want to use a hosting service that has a more reasonable name to represent your interests.
Once you have the domain name in place, you will want to remember that the DNS servers are responsible for handling requests for it. The DNS servers will be accepting requests from programs to convert names for domains into IP addresses or the servers will accept requests from other name servers to follow the same process.
Whenever DNS servers get a request, there are several things which can happen. First of all the DNS servers can return an error message if the domain name is invalid. These messages can occur when the domain name has been turned off or if it has been cancelled. These messages also occur when there is a typo in the domain name address. DNS servers can also suggest an IP address which may be able to do the domain name translation instead of that server. At times, the process may need to be taken over by another of the many DNS servers available, and the user of the computer will be alerted. Other times, the DNS servers might need to contact other name servers to finish their tasks. But most of the time, the DNS servers will answer the requests with the right IP address as it might already know what you need.
Within the process and the structure of DNS servers are the root servers which make everything possible. These servers are available in all corners of the planet, helping to ensure that the necessary information can be accessed from anywhere at anytime. These servers are easy for the DNS servers to contact as they are all linked. Even if one of the servers is down, the DNS servers can just move onto the next one on their internal list.
This process is essential in order to hook up a user to an actual website. If the user tries to connect to a website, but the IP address is invalid, they will not be able to access the site. This spells trouble if you want customers to visit your site. It's a good idea to make sure your IP address is functional each and every day to ensure your site visitors aren't greeted with an error message.
Since there are so many DNS servers working at the same time, the process has to be efficient. Usually, these servers work in large bunches, called caches to help distribute the information in a timely manner. Sometimes, you might encounter issues with the caching, but reloading the IP address or trying your request again will generally help to clear the cache for your request.
You may never actually need to know anything more about DNS servers than you do now, but knowing more places where your website might have troubles can help you more quickly diagnose problems before they become catastrophes.
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what if you have three Dns servers how do I find my primary and seconday server for xbox live i mean xbox 360
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