What is Domain Name System (DNS) and its Significance?

As, we know that the government will soon launch a public domain name system (DNS) server that will protect users from any malware or phishing with enhanced security features and response time will also be faster. But do you know what is domain name system (DNS) server, how it operates and what will be its significance. Let us study through this article.

What is Domain Name System (DNS) Server?

According to the senior officer of the ministry of electronics and IT (MeitY), DNS is a system that translates domain names to Internet Protocol or IP addresses that allows browsers to load websites sought. No doubt, it is an important tool that requires to be fool-proof and has a major role in browsing the Internet.

DNS is a database that stores all the names of domain and their corresponding IP numbers for a particular top-level domain (TLD) like .com or .net. It will identify and locate the computer systems and resources on the internet.

According to IT ministry official, the main aim of bringing our own public DNS is to ensure availability, particularly for smaller Interest Service Providers (ISPs) who don’t have credible DNS. Bigger ones usually have their own DNS.

How DNS server work?

Source: www.cloudacademy.com
The directory of DNS that matches name to the numbers is not located all in one place in some dark corner of the internet. Just like the internet, the directory is distributed around the world which is stored on domain name servers that all communicate with each other on a very regular basis to provide updates and redundancies.

What is the Meaning of Net Neutrality?

Do you know that each of the site names can correspond to more than one IP address? It is also seen that in some sites there are hundreds or more IP addresses that correspond with a single domain name. For an example, if the server of your computer reaches a particular site is completely different from the server that someone in another country would reach by typing the same name of the site into their browser.

Next we can see the amount of time that the directory would take for you to get a response when you were looking for a site. Like we can understand that if there has only one location for the directory, shared among the millions and probably billions of people were looking for the information at the same time. This is the one long line for using the phone book.

Source: www.highteck.net
Let us understand with the help of an example: Suppose, you visit to your friend for asking his health at some hospital. First, you will go to the reception counter, there you will share the name and detail of your friend then the receptionist will check data in the computer and then will be able to tell the room number or ward number of your friend.

In, the same way DNS server works. You send a request to the DNS server, the receptionist and your friend's name is the domain name and his ward number or room number is the IP address. At the reception counter, receptionist will type the name and details of your friend on her computer containing the database of all the patients which is known as the Domain Name Space. Similarly, this will happen in the DNS: when you type the name of website in your browser, the browser sends a request to the DNS server, if the name of the website is registered in the database with the DNS, then it will reply you with the IP address of the website you are trying to access, which may be something like 64.202.189.170 .

Do you know what is domain name and IP address?

Let us take a domain name, www.fb.com. The naming convention begins from right to left and vice-versa for IP address. In the domain name for face book, first the DNS will check for com which stands for the commercial domain. Further, Face book is a sub-domain to com and subsequently, www is a sub domain to face book. The dot (.) separates the domains from their sub domains. Let us tell you that the full domain name can only consist of 253 characters.

What is Black Box? How does it Work?

If you want to find out the domain name registered against an IP address, then he will request the DNS server with the IP Address of the website. Suppose the IP address sent is 31.13.79.246 then DNS will first check 31, then 13 then 79 and then finally 246 and in this way will tell you that the IP address belongs to www.fb.com. There are different tree structures in the database like here 31 belongs to the top position of the tree and is primary domain in the hierarchy, address 13, 79, 246 are consecutive sub-domains. The 246 number is the server machine hosting the website www.fb.com.

Significance of DNS server

It will enhance security to discourage cyber attacks and a quicker site loading time. If a user inadvertently accesses a malicious or phishing site, the new public system would immediately open up a page or popup to alert the user of such potential threat so that the suspicious resource could be avoided, the official who is aware of the initiative. The security features are created by the National Informatics Centre (NIC) and has a capability to host as many as 5 million users that can be scaled up further if needed.

No doubt, DNS is an important tool that requires to be fool-proof and has a major role in browsing the internet. The new DNS will be placed across the country to minimise outage and would be available round the clock. Users simply can use by typing the IP number in to the internet browser.

So, now you may have understood about the DNS technology as an effective cyber security measures and policies to stop cyber attackers.

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