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What is a DNS Server?
Domain Name System (DNS) Server Details

ball The DNS Server: The DNS server (also known as name server) is usually provided by the web hosting company such as Netsouth. The DNS server has entries of the domain name as explained next. At least a primary (e.g. ns1.nameserver.net) and a secondary (e.g. ns2.nameserver.net) name server addresses are required. DNS server setup for Netsouth clients is done using the Netsouth name servers.

ball How a Domain Server Works : Before understanding how to configure a domain name, one should know how a domain name works. There are three parts to setting up a domain name for a Website - (1) registering the domain name with a domain registrar, (2) setting up the domain name entry in a DNS server, and finally (3) configuring the web server to listen to the requests for the domain name. A request for the domain (e.g. http://ncsnet.com) starts at one of the registrar's server, which then routes it to a DNS server containing the DNS information for the domain. Once the DNS record for the domain resolves the domain name to a particular IP address, the request is sent to the web server listening to that IP address. The web server can now delegate the request to the particular Website based on the domain name in the host header of the request object.

ball Domain Setup On DNS Server: The domain setup on the DNS server can be done after the domain is registered. However, the domain name will not work until the DNS setup is completed. A DNS server maps a domain name to IP address(es) of the web server and mail server so that a client can connect to the webserver or mail server using the domain name and not the IP address. A forward lookup zone is created for the domain name in the DNS server. Start of authority (SOA), Name server (NS), Hostname (A), Canonical Names (CNAME) and Mail eXchange (MX) entries are added to the forward lookup zone.

ball Domain Name System (DNS) Definition: DNS is an Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) standard name service that allows your computer to register and resolve domain names. The DNS makes it possible to assign domain names to organizations independent of the routing of the numerical IP address. In other words, DNS is a system that translates domain names into IP addresses. This is necessary because computers only make use of IP addresses yet we use only human readable names since the names are easier to remember than IP addresses. Without this DNS resolution, the internet would be a very inconvenient place. DNS resolution is therefore a very important task. However, you may sometimes try to connect to a system by name and get a DNS error because the name did not resolve to the proper IP address

ball There can be several causes for name not resolving, such as:
•• The DNS server is down.
•• IP connectivity gets lost and thus the DNS cannot resolve.
•• DNS cache poisoning.
•• Update and zone issues.
•• The DNS server does not have network connectivity to the root servers.
There are a number of ways to find out whether your system is resolving properly. You can use nslookup to verify name resolution. The nslookup command can be used to find various details relating to a particular DNS (Domain Name System) such as IP address, MX records etc.