How DNS Works Step by Step & What is It?

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What is DNS & How it Works Explained. Domain name system explanation and practical example.

If you’re new to the world of networking, you may be wondering what this DNS thing is and how it helps you access your favorite websites and services.

Well, DNS stands for Domain Name System and it’s an essential part of the internet that lets you use easy-to-remember names instead of complicated IP addresses.

This guide will take you through what DNS is, how it works, and how you can configure it step-by-step.

You’ll also learn about the pros and cons of using DNS, and some common terms and concepts that are related to it.

Whether you’re a student, a network administrator, or just someone curious about the internet, this guide has got you covered.

We’ll start with the basics and gradually move on to more advanced concepts.

By the end of this guide, you’ll have a solid understanding of DNS and how to use it effectively.

So, let’s get started and dive into the world of DNS!

How DNS Works Video Guide

What is DNS & How it Works in 2024? Explained With Step-by-Step Example

What is DNS?

We are learning DNS today, and I will explain why it is necessary, how it works, and provide additional explanations.

DNS is a service that translates human-readable web addresses into computer-understandable numerical identifiers. It is a network protocol that makes it possible for you to remember one address–like “www.yahoo.com”–instead of an incomprehensible series of numbers, like “123.45.638.”

DNS helps keep the vast web running smoothly by translating domain names into their associated IP addresses, which are necessary for routing requests from your computer to the correct web site’s server and vice versa.

DNS stands for domain name system.

Let’s take a look at the theory definition of DNS from Wikipedia.

Domain Name System (DNS) is the hierarchical and decentralized naming system used to identify computers, services, and other resources reachable through the Internet or different Internet Protocol (IP) networks.

Now let’s understand what DNS means in simpler terms.

If you want to go to the website, you will type the name.

Like Youtube.com, Facebook.com DigitalMarketingTamil.com

Internet is a big right, and there are roughly around 1.88 billion websites.

Using names, brands, or even figuring out words is easy.

The problem is Internet does not use names; instead, they use numbers known as IP addresses. And to make your way through the Internet, you need an IP address, not a word.

The ip address is string numbers with dots.

So can you imagine browsing the Internet with IP address?

Let’s take an example:

The mobile contacts app is like DNS for a phone book where you can type a person’s name, and the app will give you their phone number.

The ip addresses are like a phone number in the phone book; you will have thousands of addresses, but still, you can figure out which is which.

It isn’t easy to use IP because it’s not a human-readable string.

So DNS came into existence; it’s nothing but a location look-up service that converts textual names into numerical codes and vice versa to locate IP addresses.

It plays a massive role in modern-day networking; it allows us to use the Internet in the simplest way possible.

The purpose is to convert domain names into numbers (IP addresses) like translator (resolve).

How DNS Works?

Step 1

  • You decide what website to go to.

Step 2

  • Open a web browser on your computer or mobile.

Step 3

  • It checks the cache memory of the computer and web browser to see if it has ip address for your website.

Step 4

  • The request goes to Domain Name System (DNS)
  • All the servers inside this work together to find the IP.

Step 5

  • It goes to DNS Recursive Server (Recursive Resolver)
  • Asks for IP address (Recursive DNS Query)
  • Most of the time, this is managed by your Internet Service Provider (ISP)
  • You can customize it using a third party like Google DNS or your own.
  • It will check its cache to see whether it has IP for your domain.
  • If it’s finding the IP, it returns it to the client
  • If not, it sends the request to the “ROOT” server.

Step 6

  • It’s Top hierarchical server.
  • This does not contain an IP address.
  • It will have information (Top-Level-Domains) TLD servers
  • Like com, net, org, and more.
  • There are 100s of root servers around the world, but all of them use 13 ip addresses.
  • In this example, it will point to the dot com server.

Step 7

  • The request goes to the TLD server.
  • It does not contain an IP address.
  • It will contain information about all the domains from that TLD.
  • Once it finds a matching entry, it will forward the request to the “Authoritative Name Server.”

Step 8

  • Authoritative Name Server is the last hope to find the IP address.

Step 9

  • It will find the IP address and send it to the DNS resolver.
  • DNS resolver stores the IP address in cache for future use.

Step 10

  • Sends IP address to client or error message.

Step 11

  • Web browsers use IP addresses to communicate with the Web server.

Step 12

  • The web server will send webpage or website files to our web browser.

All of that happens behind the scenes when you type a domain name, and the entire process generally takes less than a second.

Conclusion

We learned lot about DNS! In this guide, we went over all the basics – from what DNS is, to how it works, to the different types of records and their uses.

We can’t overstate how important DNS is – without it, the internet would be slow and unreliable.

To recap all the key points we covered in this guide: DNS stands for Domain Name System, and it’s responsible for translating domain names into numerical IP addresses.

DNS uses a hierarchy of zones and domains to organize the internet’s name space and each zone has a name server that stores the records.

DNS records are data entries that map domain names to IP addresses or other info, and there are many types of records like A, CNAME, MX, NS, SOA, and TXT.

DNS resolution is the process of finding the IP address for a domain name by querying the name servers in a specific order, and DNS caching is a technique that improves the speed and accuracy of DNS resolution by storing the results of previous queries.

Lastly, DNS security is a big deal and we talked about some common threats and solutions like DNSSEC, DANE, DoH, and DoT.

I hope now you are clear about why DNS is important in day-to-day life.

I will be happy to get your feedback on this article. If you have any suggestions or questions, please feel free to comment below.

As a digital education expert, Alston Antony is based in Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, India and specializes in entrepreneurship, SEO, SaaS, and Artificial Intelligence. In the constantly evolving business and technology sectors, his commitment to empowering individuals with essential digital skills demonstrates his commitment to success. In today's competitive digital industry, Alston's focus is comprehensive learning that helps emerging entrepreneurs and tech enthusiasts with the knowledge and tools needed to succeed.

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