How does the Internet work?
DNS - How sites are found on the Internet
Every day there are billions of emails and website requests making its way across the Internet, it’s almost surprising things work as well as they do. What I’m going to talk about today is the basic process of how these connections are made and allow the Internet work. It’s all thanks to “DNS”.
DNS stands for Domain Name System, it’s basically the “phone book” of the Internet. It helps turn a domain name that‘s easy for a human to remember into the IP address which computers love using.
“Please understand that my explanation of DNS will be a very simple overview because this can be a very in-depth and detailed topic. I don’t feel like boring you (or myself) with a detailed explanation of the subject. If you are interested in the very fine points of DNS I strongly suggest checking out the book DNS and BIND if you wish to “geek it up”.
if you wish to “geek it up”.Simple illustration of how the Internet works:
The process starts by first connecting to the Internet through your ISP (Internet Service Provider) and opening your web browser. When you enter a website address, such as http://web-hosting-basics.com, you are asking your ISP to first find that location on the Internet and then send you that web server to see the site.
If your ISP does not have information showing what IP address to connect you to, they first need to find out what Name Servers are assigned to that websites domain name. This information is controlled by the company you registered your domain name through. This websites domain was registered through [GoDaddy Link] and I changed my name servers to those of my web hosting company.
This information is able to be seen in what’s called the “Whois” record which is basically like a public record of the domain name:
Registrar: GODADDY.COM, INC.
Whois Server: whois.godaddy.com
Referral URL: http://registrar.godaddy.com
Name Server: DNS1.SUPREMEDNS.COM
Name Server: DNS2.SUPREMEDNS.COM
Since your ISP didn’t know the where on the Internet to send you they found the name servers and request that information from them.
The Name Servers pull that information up and then reply back to the ISP with the answer. Now that the IP address has been learned, your ISP sends you to the site you want to see.
I’m going to stop at this point and in my next update I’m going to cover the information inside of these Name Servers as well as the most frustrating part of working with Name Servers and making changes to them = Propagation. What it is and how to deal with it.
If you are interested in learning more about this as well as other areas of how the Internet works yet you want something written for regular people (aka - non geeks) then you should check out How the Internet Works by Preston Gralla.
This is a great book that is filled with clear and easy to understand explanations as well as great graphics that help to better explain the subject matter being discussed.
Thanks,
Jim.
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