DNS has been designed to help other application programs.

It is use to identify IP address (uniquely) to connect host to internet.

People prefer to use names instead of numeric addresses.

Internet needs to have a directory system that can map a name to an

address

Since the Internet is so huge today, a central directory system cannot

hold all the mapping.

if the central computer fails, the whole communication network will

collapse.

Whole directory is divided and when a host try to map it contact the
colsest server.
A user wants to use a file transfer client to access the corresponding file transfer server running on a remote host.
The user knows only the file transfer service name

1. The user passes the host name to the file transfer client.
2. The file transfer client passes the host name to the DNS client.
3. Each computer, after being booted, knows the address of one DNS server. The DNS client sends a message to a
DNS server with a query that gives the file transfer server name using the known IP address of the DNS server.
4. The DNS server responds with the IP address of the desired file transfer server.
5. The DNS server passes the IP address to the file transfer client.
6. The file transfer client now uses the received IP address to access the file transfer server.
• A name space that maps each address to a unique name .
• flat or hierarchical.

• Flat
• In a flat name space, a name is assigned to an address.But it doent
have any structure.
• The names may or may not have a common section; if they do, it has
no meaning.
• Main disadv is it is not good for internet and may cause ambiguity.
hierarchical name space
• each name is made of several parts
• The first part can define the nature of the organization,
• the second part can define the name of an organization,
• the third part can define departments in the organization,
• Here different parts are asasigned by different aurhorities.
• A central authority can assign the part of the name that defines the
nature of the organization and the name of the organization.
Domain Name Space

• To have a hierarchical name space, a domain name space was

designed.
• design the names are defined in an inverted-tree structure with the
root at the top.
Label
• Each node in the tree has a label, which is a string with a maximum of
63 characters.
• The root label is a null string .
• Each and every lebel is differnet from each other.
 Domain Name
• Each node in the tree has a domain name.
• A full domain name is a sequence of labels separated by dots (.)
• The domain names are always read from the node up to the root.
• If a label is terminated by a null string, it is called a fully qualified domain
name (FQDN).
• If a label is not terminated by a null string, it is called a partially qualified
domain name (PQDN).
Here the resolver can supply the missing part, called the suffix, to create an
FQDN.
. A host that needs to map an address to a name or a name to an address
calls a DNS client called a resolver.
Domain
• A domain is a subtree of the domain name space.
• The name of the domain is the name of the node at the top of the
subtree.
Distribution of Name Space
• The information of domain name space must be stored.
• not reliable to have just one computer store such a huge amount of
information.

Hierarchy of Name Servers

• One way to do this is to divide the whole space into many domains based
on the first level.
• In other words, we let the root stand alone and create as many domains
(subtrees)
Zone
• What a server is responsible for or has authority over is called a zone.
• If a server accepts responsibility for a domain and does not divide the
domain into smaller domains, the “domain” and the “zone” refer to
the same thing.
• , if a server divides its domain into subdomains and delegates part of
its authority to other servers, “domain” and “zone” refer to different
things.
Root Server

• A root server is a server whose zone consists of the whole tree.

Primary and Secondary Servers
• A primary server loads all information from the disk file; It is
responsible for creating,maintaining, and updating the zone file. It
stores the zone file on a local disk.
• the secondary server loads all information from the primary server
DNS in the Internet
• DNS is a protocol that can be used in different platforms
• In the Internet, the domain name space (tree) was originally divided
into three different sections: generic domains, country domains, and
the inverse domains.
• However, due to the rapid growth of the Internet, it became
extremely difficult to keep track of the inverse domains, which could
be used to find the name of a host when given the IP address. The
inverse domains are now deprecated.
Generic Domains
• The generic domains define registered hosts according to their
generic behavior.
Country Domains
• The country domains section uses two-character country
abbreviations.

• The United States, for example, uses state abbreviations as a

subdivision of us (e.g., ca.us.).
Resolution
• Mapping a name to an address is called name-address resolution.
• DNS is designed as a client-server application.
• The resolver accesses the closest DNS server with a mapping request.
• resolution can be either recursive or iterative.
Recursive Resolution
Recursive Resolution
• the source host calls the DNS resolver (client) to find the IP address of the destination
host.
• The resolver, which does not know this address, sends the query to the local DNS server.
• We assume that this server does not know the IP address of the destination host either.
• It sends the query to a root DNS server
• Root servers do not normally keep the mapping between names and IP addresses, but a
root server should at least know about one server at each top level domain
• The query is sent to this top-level-domain server
• We assume that this server does not know the name-address mapping of this specific
destination
• but it knows the IP address of the local DNS server of the destination host.
• Then ip address is passed as a response by every server to its previous one.
Iterative Resolution
In iterative resolution, each server that does not know
the mapping sends the IP address of the next server back to the one that requested it.
Caching
• Each time a server receives a query for a name that is not in its
domain, it needs to search its database for a server IP address.
• Reduction of this search time would increase efficiency.
• a server asks for a mapping from another server and receives the
response, it stores this information in its cache memory before
sending it to the client.
• However, to inform the client that the response is coming from the
cache memory and not from an authoritative source, the server
marks the response as unauthoritative.
caching
• Caching speeds up resolution, but it can also be problematic.
• To counter this, two techniques are used.
• the authoritative server always adds information to the mapping
called time to live (TTL). It defines the time in seconds that the
receiving server can cache the information.
• , DNS requires that each server keep a TTL counter for each mapping
it caches.
Resource Records
• A resource record is a 5-tuple structure.
• (Domain Name, Type, Class, TTL, Value)
• The class defines the type of network
• value defines the information kept about the domain name
• The type defines how the value should be interpreted.
DNS Messages
DNS Messages
The identification field is used by the client to match the response with the query.
The flag field defines whether the message is a query or response. It also includes status of error.
The question section consists of one or more question records
The answer section consists of one or more resource records.
The authoritative section gives information about one or more authoritative servers for the query.
The additional information section provides additional information that may help the resolver.
Encapsulation
• DNS can use either UDP or TCP
• UDP is used when the size of the response message is less than 512
bytes because most UDP packages have a 512-byte packet size limit
• Otherwise TCP
• if the size of the response message is more than 512 bytes, the
server truncates the message and turns on the TC bit. The resolver
now opens a TCP connection
Registrars

• How are new domains added to DNS?

• A registrar first verifies that the requested domain name is unique
and then enters it into the DNS database.
DDNS

• when there is a change, such as adding a new host, removing a host,

or changing an IP address, the change must be made to the DNS
master file.
• These types of changes involve a lot of manual updating.
• The size of today’s Internet does not allow for this kind of manual
operation.
• The DNS master file must be updated dynamically.
Security of DNS
• Attacker read the DNS server and knows what a client access mostly.

• Attacker can change the response of a DNS server and sand a

Different IP address to The client.
• The attacker may flood the DNS server and Crash it. It can be prevent
by using the provision against denial-of-service attack.
• What structure Resource Records? What are its perameters?
• What inverse domains?
• When domain and zone are same?

• If a server accepts responsibility for a domain and does not divide the
domain into smaller domains, the “domain” and the “zone” refer to
the same thing.