DNS QUESTIONS MUST BE PROGRAMMING RELATED. Use this tag for programming questions related to writing code that interacts with the Domain Name System (DNS); for example, writing code that uses gethostbyname()
Don’t use this tag for questions that aren’t about programming. StackOverflow as a site is only for questions about programming. If you have a DNS-related question about server configuration, DNS configuration, or other non-programming questions, consider instead posting on:
- Super User, if it's about home networking.
- Server Fault, if it belongs there.
Background information on DNS
The Domain Name System (DNS) is a hierarchical naming system built on a distributed database. It translates domain names meaningful to humans into the IP addresses associated with the networking device. For example: www.stackoverflow.com => 64.34.119.12
One thing that DNS makes possible is changing the IP address while not changing the name. This allows moving the site to another provider, without requiring users to learn anything new. It is also possible to have several different DNS names resolve to the same IP address, and have the same http web server at that IP address handle the different names as different websites.
As already stated, DNS is hierarchical and distributed system. In looking up cs.luc.edu four different DNS servers may be required: for the so-called "DNS root zone", for edu, for luc.edu and cs.luc.edu. Searching hierarchy can be cumbersome, so DNS search results are usually cached locally.
Specification
The concepts of the Domain Name System are explained in RFC1034. The specification and implementation are described in RFC1035.
Reference
Domain Name System on Wikipedia
An Introduction to Computer Networks by Peter L Dordal
