Networking Fundamentals

Exploring DNS

The DNS is the most common form of name resolution that's currently in use. This vendor-agnostic system is used by all modern-day networked operating systems, including Windows, Linux, macOS, Android, iOS, and Cisco IOS. DNS provides a hierarchical means of resolving a hostname to an IP address – more specifically, a fully qualified domain name (FQDN). Because of its hierarchical nature, DNS can be used within local networks and across the internet. When resolving an FQDN to an IP address, we use what is known as a forward lookup zone. When we are resolving an IP address to an FQDN, we use a reverse lookup zone.

A lot of people seem to confuse DNS and DHCP. This is probably because they think of both as providers of IP addresses. ...