Chapter 7
The Application Layer
Domain Name System
2010 1
Why?
• Computers are identified by a numerical IP address
• and provided services by a port number
• Humans like readable, meaningful text, easy to remember
• www.cs.ru.nl, [email protected], etc.
• Need for conversion between names and addresses
• This core functionality is provided by an application layer
protocol: DNS
2010 2
Domain based
The Internet is divided into several top-level domains,
generic (com, edu, etc.) and countries (us, nl, etc.)
Each domain is named by the path upward from it to the
unnamed root. Domain names are case insensitive, each
component can be up to 63 characters and the total length
may2010
not exceed 255 characters. 3
2010 4
Distributed hierarchical database
Data for Name-IP pairs are distributed over a hierarchical
organized system of servers:
• Root DNS servers (13 now)
• gives the IP address of the servers for the next level
• actually each one is a cluster of servers for security and
reliability reasons
• Top level domain (TLD) DNS servers
• for each of the top level domains
• give the IP addresses of the servers for the level below
• Authoritative DNS servers
• one for every organization with publicly available hosts
• contain the name-IP pairs (and more information)
2010 5
Recursive lookup
• Requests go via the local DNS
server first to a root DNS
server, which forwards the
request to the relevant TLD
DNS server, which forwards it
to the relevant authoritative
DNS server.
• The answer goes back the same
route.
• Name-IP pairs may be cached
• In case TLD only knows
dns.umass.edu two more DNS
messages are needed.
2010 6
Iterative lookup
Requests and answers go
now directly from the
local DNS server into the
hierarchy.
This is the most often
used method.
Each DNS server caches
received (name-IP) pairs
for a certain amount of
time.
2010 7
DNS services
•host name – IP conversion
•domain name (cucg.gh) – DNS server (dns.cucg.gh) names
•host aliasing:
•simple names for a long canonical name
•relay1.west-coast.enterprise.com – www.enterprise.com
•mail server aliasing:
•e.g. to use [email protected]
•load distribution over replicated servers of e.g. cnn.com
•the DNS contains a list of IP numbers
•the total list is returned but the order is rotated each time
•the receiver usually takes the top of the list
•used for web and email servers
•recently also more complicated use for replicated servers,
taking geographic distribution into account
2010 8
Resource DNS records
•These are 4-tuples:
•(Name, Value, Type, TTL)
•TTL (time to live) indicates how long it may be cached
•Types:
•A: Name is hostname, Value the IP address
•NS: Name is a domain, Value the name of an authoritative
DNS server for it
•CNAME: Name is an alias hostname, Value its canonical
name
•MX: Name is an alias name for a mail server, Value is its
canonical name
•there are more, like PTR (IP->hostname) and INFO
(information over the host, like type and OS)
2010 9
DNS messages
Questions are kept when answers are send
The 16 bits identification allows to separate different requests
The flags indicate e.g. request or reply message, recursion or
not, etc.
2010 10
Further DNS developments
•reverse lookup via special domains, eg
100.10.30.194.in-addr.arpa
•wildcard (*) in domain names
•ExtendedDNS : removes the length limitations
•IDNA: allowing non-ASCII characters in domain names
•DNSSEC: adding security to DNS
•new top level domains, like museum, travel, etc.
•more complicated use for replicated servers, taking
geographic distribution and loads on the servers into
account
2010 11
