Chapter 25
Domain Name System
25.1
Copyright © The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Permission required for reproduction or display.
Figure 25.1 Example of using the DNS service
server
Typo in textbook
25.2
25-1 NAME SPACE
To be unambiguous, the names assigned to machines
must be carefully selected from a name space with
complete control over the binding between the names
and IP addresses.
Topics discussed in this section:
Flat Name Space: hard to manage for large-scale system
Hierarchical Name Space: name has several parts
25.3
25-2 DOMAIN NAME SPACE
To have a hierarchical name space, a domain name
space was designed. In this design the names are
defined in an inverted-tree structure with the root at
the top. The tree can have only 128 levels: level 0
(root) to level 127.
Topics discussed in this section:
Label
Domain Name
Domain
25.4
Figure 25.2 Domain name space
root
25.5
Figure 25.3 Domain names and labels
25.6
Figure 25.5 Domains: subtree of the domain name space
25.7
25-3 DISTRIBUTION OF NAME SPACE
The information contained in the domain name space
must be stored. However, it is very inefficient and also
unreliable to have just one computer store such a huge
amount of information. In this section, we discuss the
distribution of the domain name space.
Topics discussed in this section:
Hierarchy of Name Servers
Zone
Root Server
Primary and Secondary Servers
25.8
Figure 25.6 Hierarchy of name servers
25.9
DNS: Root name servers
a Verisign, Dulles, VA
c Cogent, Herndon, VA (also Los Angeles)
d U Maryland College Park, MD
g US DoD Vienna, VA
h ARL Aberdeen, MD
j Verisign, ( 11 locations)
k RIPE London (also Amsterdam, Frankfurt)
i Autonomica, Stockholm (plus 3 other
locations)
m WIDE Tokyo
e NASA Mt View, CA
f Internet Software C. Palo Alto, CA
(and 17 other locations)
b USC-ISI Marina del Rey, CA
l ICANN Los Angeles, CA
13 root name
servers
worldwide
TLD and Authoritative Servers

Top-level domain (TLD) servers: responsible for
com, org, net, edu, etc, and all top-level country
domains uk, fr, ca, jp.



Network solutions maintains servers for com TLD
Educause for edu TLD
Authoritative DNS servers: organization’s DNS
servers, providing authoritative hostname to IP
mappings for organization’s servers (e.g., Web
and mail).

Can be maintained by organization or service
provider (paid by the organization)
Figure 25.7 Zones and domains
25.12
Note
Two types of DNS server: A primary server
loads all information from the disk file; the
secondary server loads all information from
the primary server. Reason: redundancy
When the secondary downloads
information from the primary, it is called zone
transfer.
25.13
25-4 DNS IN THE INTERNET
DNS is a protocol that can be used in different
platforms. In the Internet, the domain name space
(tree) is divided into three different sections: generic
domains, country domains, and the inverse domain.
Topics discussed in this section:
Generic Domains
Country Domains
Inverse Domain
25.14
DNS Query Commands
Unix: nslookup, dig
Windows: nslookup
25.15
Figure 25.8 DNS IN THE INTERNET
25.16
Figure 25.9 Generic domains
25.17
Table 25.1 Generic domain labels
25.18
Figure 25.10 Country domains
25.19
25-5 RESOLUTION
Mapping a name to an address or an address to a
name is called name-address resolution.
Topics discussed in this section:
Resolver
Mapping Names to Addresses
Mapping Addresses to Names
Recursive Resolution
Caching
25.20
Figure 25.12 Recursive resolution
25.21
Figure 25.13 Iterative resolution
25.22
Caching: Main Reason for the Efficiency of DNS
All DNS servers cache prior query results
Normal DNS query will not go through the
full steps of recursive/iterative resolution
25.23
25-6 DNS MESSAGES
DNS has two types of messages: query and response.
Both types have the same format. The query message
consists of a header and question records; the
response message consists of a header, question
records, answer records, authoritative records, and
additional records.
Topics discussed in this section:
Header
25.24
Figure 25.14 Query and response messages
25.25
Figure 25.15 Header format
25.26
25-7 TYPES OF RECORDS
As we saw in Section 25.6, two types of records are
used in DNS. The question records are used in the
question section of the query and response messages.
The resource records are used in the answer,
authoritative, and additional information sections of
the response message.
Topics discussed in this section:
Question Record
Resource Record
25.27
DNS records
DNS: distributed db storing Resource Records (RR)
RR format: (name,
 Type=A



25.28
name is hostname
value is IP address
value, type, ttl)
 Type=CNAME

name is alias name for some
“canonical” (the real) name
www.ibm.com is really
Type=NS
servereast.backup2.ibm.com
 value is canonical name
 name is domain (e.g.
foo.com)
 value is name of
 Type=MX
authoritative DNS server
 value is name of mailserver
for this domain
associated with name
DNS protocol, messages
DNS protocol : query and reply messages, both with
same message format
msg header
 identification: 16 bit # for
query, reply to query
uses same #
 flags:
 query or reply
 recursion desired
 recursion available
 reply is authoritative
25.29
DNS protocol, messages (UDP 53)
Name, type fields
for a query
RRs in
response
to query
records for
authoritative servers
additional “helpful”
info that may be used
Let’s check a web example using Wireshark!
(MX record: nslookup –type=MX cs.ucf.edu or
dig mx cs.ucf.edu)
25.30
Inserting records into DNS


Example: just created startup “netwar”
Register name netwar.com at a registrar (e.g., Network
Solutions)


Need to provide registrar with names and IP addresses of your
authoritative name server (primary and secondary)
Registrar inserts two RRs into the com TLD server:
(netwar.com, dns1.netwar.com, NS)
(dns1.netwar.com, 212.212.212.1, A)

Put in authoritative server dns1.netwar.com

Type A record for www.netwar.com


Type MX record for netwar.com (email)


25.31
Type CName for netwar.com (alias)
Type A record for the email server
How do people get the IP address of your Web site?
25-8 REGISTRARS
How are new domains added to DNS? This is done
through a registrar, a commercial entity accredited by
ICANN. A registrar first verifies that the requested
domain name is unique and then enters it into the
DNS database. A fee is charged.
25.32
25-9 DYNAMIC DOMAIN NAME
SYSTEM (DDNS)
Used when a server has a dynamic-changeable IP
The DNS master file must be updated dynamically.
The Dynamic Domain Name System (DDNS)
therefore was devised to respond to this need. In
DDNS, when a binding between a name and an
address is determined, the information is sent, usually
by DHCP to a primary DNS server. The primary server
updates the zone. The secondary servers are notified
either actively or passively.
25.33
25-10 ENCAPSULATION
DNS can use either UDP or TCP. In both cases the
well-known port used by the server is port 53. UDP is
used when the size of the response message is less than
512 bytes because most UDP packages have a 512-byte
packet size limit. If the size of the response message is
more than 512 bytes, a TCP connection is used.
25.34
Note
DNS can use the services of UDP or TCP
using the well-known port 53.
25.35