DNS Root Name Servers

DNS is strongly oriented around the notion of hierarchical structure. The name space, registration authorities, and name servers are all arranged in a tree structure. Like these structures, the name resolution process is also hierarchical. As explained in Chapter 53, a fully qualified domain name (FQDN) is resolved by starting with the least specific domain name element (label) and working toward the most specific one.

Naturally, the least specific portion of every name is the root node under which the entire DNS structure exists. This means that, absent caching and other performance enhancements, all name resolution begins with the root of the name tree. We find here a set of name servers that are responsible for name server ...

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