DNS & Domains•5 min read•beginner

What Is DNS? How Domain Names Resolve

A beginner-friendly overview of the Domain Name System, the phonebook of the global Internet.

The Address Translator

Computers communicate using IP addresses, but humans prefer memorable words (e.g. memonaiq.com). The Domain Name System (DNS) translates human-readable domain names into the binary IP addresses required to route data.

Recursive DNS Resolution Lifecycle

Browser Client

Recursive DNS

Root Server (.)

TLD Server (.com)

Authoritative Nameserver

The recursive resolver queries root, TLD, and authoritative nameservers sequentially to return the target IP to the browser.

The Distributed Database

DNS is not hosted on one single machine. It is a hierarchical, distributed database spanning thousands of nameservers worldwide. If a server does not know a lookup answer, it queries parent nameservers down the tree until it finds the record.

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Applied Engineering

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