This document has been placed in the public domain by Sam
Trenholme
Intoduction to DNS
This document is meant to be an introduction to DNS for someone who has
never administrated a DNS server or registered a domain before. Being a
part of the MaraDNS package, this tutorial assumes that one is using
the MaraDNS package.
What is DNS?
DNS is the method that the internet uses to convert difficult-to-remember
numbers, such as '10.17.243.32', in to easy-to-remember names, such as
'www.yahoo.com'. The reason for this conversion is because the underlying
protocol for the internet, TCP/IP, uses difficult-to-remember numbers
to connect to other computers.
What is a DNS server
A DNS server is a program that performs the DNS conversion from
names in to number. There are two kinds of DNS servers out there:
- DNS servers which can convert most DNS nodes in to thier
corresponding number. These DNS servers are called recursive DNS
servers. This kind of server can not change the names of any DNS
nodes out there. Instead, they simply ask other DNS servers the IP
for a given DNS node.
- DNS servers which can only convert DNS nodes which a DNS
server administrator manages from DNS nodes in to IPs. The DNS
server administrator can change the IPs that the DNS nodes have.
These kinds of DNS servers are called
authoritative DNS servers.
Recursive DNS servers contact authoritative DNS servers in order to learn
the IP for a given DNS node.
MaraDNS is both a recursive and an authoritative DNS server. Whether one
needs a recursive or an authoritative DNS server depends on what one is
trying to do with dns:
Some other documentation is here, including A
glossary.