If you intend to know about the working of DNS server then this article is what you need to read.

The infographic below will clear your concepts about DNS server.

Before reading about DNS server you must have good knowledge about servers. You must know what are servers and what function do they perform.

Web Server Definition

It holds the responsibility of delivering the web pages on the world wide web.

To make your computer a web server, you just need to install the web server software on your computer.

What is a Domain Name Server?

You can call it a phone book of the internet. It has data about public IP addresses.

It translates the website name that is readable by humans into an IP address.

In addition to this, it also provides the mail service information about the domain names.

When we intend to visit a website we don’t need to type it’s IP address, we just enter the domain name and the rest is done by the Domain name server for us.

IP addresses are also quite difficult to remember as compared to the domain names.

How DNS Works?

When you enter the domain name in the browser, first your browser checks its cache for the data. If the data is not found, the resolver comes into action.

Then root servers and TLD name servers do their work and as a result of this, your website gets displayed on your browser.

You might be surprised to know that this whole process completes in milliseconds i.e it is done in less than a second.

Resolver

It can also be termed as the DNS lookup tool.

Its responsibility is to convert the hostname to IP address.

TLD Name Servers

TLD refers to the last part of your domain name. For example in zappedia.com, com is the TLD.

TLD name servers get the request form root servers and forward it to the authoritative name servers.

DNS Root Name Servers

It responds to the request by answering them and return the authoritative name servers.

They are quite important as they are considered to be the initial step in converting domain names to IP address.

Final Thoughts

Thus when we enter a domain name in the browser, then in the background a big process takes place.

The whole process although seems to bit lengthy but is completed in less than a second.

Thus network communications are much faster than what you imagine.

Also, Checkout How to Make a Private Server?