Introduction to DNS Structure, Functions, and Software

DNS is a hierarchical protocol, operating across the Internet in a fashion similar to how routing works. A number of “root servers” are maintained by various university and government entities, distributed geographically around the Internet for redundancy reasons. The list of root servers is maintained by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), and their locations are listed at http://www.root-servers.org. Each domain name (for instance, example.com) is defined in backward order from the root zone, with the domain suffix—com, org, net, and so on—being the topmost layer of the hierarchy directly under the . (a single dot), which refers to the root zone. Below each ...

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