Domain Name System

( DNS )

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What Is DNS

DNS is essential directory services for

the Internet.
It translates Internet Domain Name to IP
Address.
e.g. www.google.com => 74.125.71.147

DNS is backbone of Internet

If there is no DNS and DNS Server, there
will be no Internet

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History
Of
DNS
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 ARAPNET Advanced Research Project

Agency Network was started with a few
hosts as research project
This project was pioneer project to
become today Internet
When APARNET was small, hosts.txt file
was used for name resolution
Hosts.txt file contain unstructured IPv4
address and hostname

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 Hosts.txt file was stored on central

location
Every other hosts on the ARPANET
download hosts.txt file
When APARNET was small & new hosts
are less frequent, using hosts.txt was OK

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 But as ARPANET grew day-by-day, using

hosts.txt has the following problems
Hosts.txt file need to be downloaded more
than one time per day
Hosts.txt file size became larger daily and
unwieldy
As hosts.txt contain unstructured name &
IPv4 address, it is difficult to manage data
within it
Computer that store hosts.txt file became
overload

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 The problems mentioned above lead to

develop a solution with the following
needs
Distributed
Hierarchical name space
Delegate administration
Minimal Administrative overhead
Database Store with the followings req;

Well structured
Extensible data types
Virtually unlimited data size
Reasonable performance

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DNS
System
Components
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DNS System is composed of with the

following components
1. Domain Name Space & Resource
Record
2. Domain Name Server
3. DNS Client & Resolver

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Domain
Name
Space
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DNS define domain name space as inverted tree.

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DNS Name Space

DNS name space is composed of labels.
There is a dot between the labels.
E.g. www.yahoo.com

Each label can be up to 63-characters

And total label length can be up to 255
characters in length.

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Domain Name

Domain name represent business name,

institution, etc ..
E.g. Yahoo.com, Microsoft.com, Google.com

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Host Name/ FQDN Name

DNS hostname is also called fully

qualified domain name (FQDN)
FQDN Name = Computer Name +
Domain name

E.g. smtp.gmail.com, ns1.microsoft.com

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Resource
Records
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 Resource record are records that are

stored in DNS database.

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Resource Records
R Records

Descriptions

SOA

Start of Authority for a zone

IPv4 address

AAAA

IPv6 address

NS

Authoritative name servers for a given domain

PTR

Map IP address of FQDN name for reverse lookup

CNAME

Aliases name for a host

MX

Mail Exchanger for a domain

SRV

IP address of servers for specific services

WINS

IP Address of WINS server (Win-2003/2008 Only)

WINS-R

IP Address for WINS Reverse Lookup (Win2003/2008)

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Domain
Name
Server
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DNS Server main functions

1. Store resource records and information
about domain tree in database
2. Answer client name resolution request

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DNS Database

DNS server store domain name, IP

address, TTL, Mail Exchanger, etc in
hierarchical & distributed database.
This database is called DNS Database
Why DNS database is stored as
distributed ..?
Redundancy
Load balancing

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DNS
Client
&
Resolver
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Resolver are programs or library that run

on DNS client
DNS client use resolver for name query
operations
Resolver Functions;

Contact name server

Send name query
Extract name query
Give name query result to client

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Name
Server
Roles
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 There are three types of name servers

1. Primary/ Authoritative Name Server
2. Secondary Name Server
3. Cache Only Name Server

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Primary Name Server

DNS server that store primary Zone Info for a
given domain in its local database ( Zone File)
is called Primary Name Server.
Primary Name Server
Store DNS info in its local database (Zone)
Answer name query from client

DNS info changes for a domain can only be

made on Primary Name Server level

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DNS Zone
A DNS zone is admin unit for a domain
Continuous portion of domain name space
That have DNS database exist and managed
by particular organization

Each zone anchored at specific node

A zone do not need to contain complete tree
A domain can partition into several subdomains which are controlled by separate
DNS Servers
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Secondary Name
Secondary name server
Keep backup copy of name database from
primary name server
Answer name query from client and resolve it

The objectives;
Redundancy
Load balancing
Performance for remote locations
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Master Name Server

DNS Server that acts as source of zone
database for secondary name server is
called Master Name Server
Master Name Server can be Primary or
Secondary Name server

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Zone Transfer
Transferring DNS Database from Master
Name Server Secondary Name Server
is called Zone Transfer
Zone transfer take places;
When Secondary Name Server starts, it
contact to Primary Name Server and start
zone transfers
Periodically according to SOA records
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Primary & Secondary

IANA recommend for organization to have
at least two DNS servers for a domain
To reduce cost and maintenance, a DNS
server can be configured as Primary for a
domain & as Secondary for other domain
E.g. Ns1.a.com.mm
Ns1.b.com.mm

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- Primary for a.com.mm

- Secondary for b.com.mm
- Primary for b.com.mm
- Secondary for a.com.mm
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Authoritative Name Server

Authoritative name server return name
query request of client from its local zone
database
Primary & Secondary name servers are
authoritative servers for a given domain

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Cache Only Name Server

Dont store resource record of any domain
Cache Only Name Server is not
authoritative for any domain
Cache only name server does;
Accept name query from client
Send name query to name server
Give name query result to client
Cache name query result for future request
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 Cache only name server can make better

name query performance
Most router consists of Cache Only Name
server features (called DNS Proxy )

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Domain
Hierarchy
Levels
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 Domain define different levels of authority

in hierarchical structure as below
Root Domain
Top Level Domain
Second Level Domain
Sub-domains

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DNS Hierarchy & TLDs

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Root Domain
Top level hierarchy of domain is called root
domain
Root domain use null label and
represented by a single dot (.) in inverted
domain tree
Root domain and top-level domain are
managed by IANA

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Top-level Domain
All domains under the root domain are
called top-level domain
Top level domain are assigned by
organization type and country
There are 8 top level domains in original
DNS specification
But today some top level domains are
approved e.g. .car, .video .
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.com

Commercial organizations

.edu

Educational Institutions

.gov

Government organizations

.int

International organizations

.mil

Military

.net

Networking organization

.org

Non-commercial organization

.xx

Country Domains
.mm (Myanmar)
.us (USA)
.au (Australia)

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Second Level Domain

Domain under the top-level domains are
called second level domain.
Second level domain are managed by the
organization that own it
For e.g. Microsoft.com is managed by
Microsoft Corp

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Sub-Domains / Child Domains

Domains under the second level domains
are called sub-domain or child domains
Child domains are also managed by
organization that own domain

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Root
DNS
Server
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There are a special DNS servers that offer

name query service to all DNS servers around
the world.
These DNS servers are called Root DNS
Server ( Root Servers)
There are currently (13) root servers

A.root-servers.net, B.root-servers.net, M.rootservers.net

Nearly all root servers run UNIX & BIND

A, C, F, I, J, K, L and M servers now exist in
multiple locations on different continents

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Name
Query
Process
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Local
Name
Reosolution
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 Local name resolution can be performed

with hosts file
But host file location differs with OS and
mentioned below
OS Name
Hosts File Location
------------------------------------------Win9x-ME
C:\Windows
NT-XP++
C:\Windows\system32\drivers\etc
Apple
System Folder
Linux/UNIX /etc

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Round
Robin
DNS
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DNS Round Robin (RFC-1794)

DNS Round Robin is a technique used for
Load balancing
To avoid single point of failure

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How It Works
DNS Server provide more than one IP
address of a domain to client query ( in
cycling order
1st Req: www.abc.com =>1.1.1.1, 2.2.2.2, 3.3.3.3
2nd Req: www.abc.com => 2.2.2.2, 3.3.3.3, 1.1.1.1
3rd Req: www.abc.com => 3.3.3.3, 1.1.1.1, 2.2.2.2

DNS Client use the first ip address from

list of IP Address
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Dynamic
DNS
Update
( DDNS Update)
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What is Dynamic DNS

Before DHCP standard was defined, all
hosts are assigned static IP address and
DNS database is updated accordingly
But when DHCP was used, all DHCP
clients use dynamic IP Address
Thus it is difficult to manually update DNS
database for every hosts

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 To communicate among hosts, DNS info

should be always up to date
To keep up to date DNS info, DHCP
server is responsible to update DNS
database whenever it release IP address
to clients.
This is called Dynamic DNS Update (or)
DDNS Update

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DNS
Miscellaneous
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DNS Forward Lookup

Forward lookup is just a normal lookup
You provide domain name
And you get IP Address of a domain name

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Reverse Lookup
Query IP => Name resolution
Typical use of reverse query
Tracert command
Email Server
Web site blocking

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