What Is a DNS Record?
DNS stands for Domain Name System, a system developed to help improve usability for users browsing the Internet. The DNS structure and the DNS records that constitute that structure are an extremely important, but very invisible part of the Internet. Whenever you type a URL in to your web browsing program, you are depending on DNS records to get you to the correct website.
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How DNS Works
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The metaphor most often used to describe DNS is that it is the Internet's equivalent of the phone book. All network hardware, whether it is your computer or a server, has an IP address composed of four integers, which are anything from 0 to 255. IP addresses are difficult to remember, however, so DNS provides functionality similar to a phone book. When you want to know someone's phone number, you consult a phone book, and similarly, when your web browser wants to know the IP address of a website, it consults a DNS server.
History
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When the Internet was still in its infancy, there were so few devices on the network that computers were able to download a file that contained all the IP addresses and the corresponding human language address. The rapid expansion of the Internet, however, necessitated a new system. So many new devices being added quickly to the network made a system of distributed files impractical. DNS was designed to solve that problem.
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DNS Records
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The DNS record is an individual entry in the DNS database. When you type an address into a web browser, the web browser asks the DNS server what IP address is associated with the address you typed, and the DNS server does this by looking up the DNS entry, or record, of that address. It then returns that information to your web browser. This all happens in just a few milliseconds.
Local DNS Records
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DNS records may also be stored on your computer for a period of time. Storing DNS records saves your web browser from having to constantly ask the DNS server what the IP address of "google.com" is, for example. You might use a common web site like "google.com" several times a day, and by storing the entry locally, the load on the DNS server is greatly reduced, and your computer can load websites that much faster.
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References
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