The domain name system (DNS)

Skills: none
IT concepts: domain, domain name, host, IP
address, domain registrar

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoncommercialShare Alike 3.0 License.

The domain name system (DNS) in context

Internet concepts
Applications
Technology (TCP/IP)
Implications for
Individuals
Organizations
Society
Internet skills
Application development
Content creation
Text
Images
Audio
Video

Domain names
We refer to computers on the Internet (Internet
hosts), by names like:
bpastudio.csudh.edu
These are called domain names or, if you want to
be really geeky, fully qualified domain names.
The key point is that the name identifies a
particular computer no two hosts have the same
domain name.

The parts of a domain name

bpastudio.csudh.edu
The particular host is called bpastudio
The organization that controls it is called csudh
This host is at an educational organization

A domain is a group of related hosts.

How are these hosts related?

bpastudio.csudh.edu
www.ucla.edu
sws.csudh.edu
chemistry.stanford.edu

They all belong to educational institutions.

They are members of the edu top-level domain
(TLD).

How are these hosts related?

bpastudio.csudh.edu
www.csudh.edu
sws.csudh.edu
chemistry.csudh.edu
They all belong to the same organization, CSUDH.
They are members of the csudh.edu second-level
domain.

A unique host
bpastudio.csudh.edu
This is the domain name of a unique host. It is
a member of the csudh.edu domain, but it is
the only one with the name bpastudio.
It is like a family all the brothers and sisters
have the same last name, but it would be
confusing if two of them also had the same first
name.

There are a limited number of top-level

domains (TLDs), including:

.edu, educational
.com, commercial
.gov, government
.org, non profit
.net, networking organizations

These are called generic TLDs.

There are also country code top-level

domain names for every nation, like:

.us, United States

.mx, Mexico
.cl, Chile
.uk, United Kingdom
.tv, Tuvalu

These are called country code top-level domains

(ccTLDs).
The organization or host do not necessarily have to be
in the country to register the name. For example, .tv is
popular everywhere.

Some TLDs use a four-level hierarchy

http://www.google.co.uk/
http://www.unam.edu.mx/
http://www.ox.ac.uk/
http://www.google.com.mx/

Registrars sell domain names

For most generic TLDs there are many registrars
and a competitive registration market place:
http://www.icann.org/en/registrars/accredited-li
st.html
The registrar for .edu is a professional society
called Educause:
http://net.educause.edu/edudomain/
List of organizations responsible for registrars in
the country code domains:
http://www.iana.org/domains/root/db/#

Regstering a domain check for

availability

Larrypress.com was taken, but these

are available and for sale

Getting a name and IP address at

CSUDH
A computer center staff person assigns
them.
No two IP addresses or domain names
can be the same.
The staff person updates the table of
domain names and IP addresses stored
on the CSUDH domain name server.

Some hosts in the csudh.edu domain

Domain name

IP address

sws.csudh.edu

155.135.1.163

ctl.csudh.edu

155.135.1.166

email.csudh.edu

155.135.1.180

ns1.csudh.edu

155.135.55.2

vaquero.csudh.edu

155.135.55.6

toro3.csudh.edu

155.135.55.8

music1.csudh.edu

155.135.55.11

home.muphiepsilon.org

155.135.55.13

library.csudh.edu

155.135.55.17

We are letting muphiepsilon.org use a computer on our campus.

Some hosts in the csudh.edu domain

Domain name

IP address

sws.csudh.edu

155.135.1.163

ctl.csudh.edu

155.135.1.166

email.csudh.edu

155.135.1.180

ns1.csudh.edu

155.135.55.2

vaquero.csudh.edu

155.135.55.6

toro3.csudh.edu

155.135.55.8

music1.csudh.edu

155.135.55.11

home.muphiepsilon.org

155.135.55.13

library.csudh.edu

155.135.55.17

Every domain has a domain name server (DNS). Our DNS is

ns1.csudh.edu. It does the IP address lookups for TCP..

DNS search
If your DNS knows the IP address it returns it.
Otherwise it will contact another DNS to get the
result.
Etc. until it is found or determined that it does
not exist, in which case an error message is
returned.

Food for thought

Is the <your name>.com domain name
available?
When you try to go to http://www.google.xom,
you get an error message, but
http://www.gooogle.com takes you to Google.
Why?
http://wwww.google.com also returns an error
message. Why?