An Acronym for Domain Name Service -- the glue that binds the InterWeb? together.

DNS is the Protocol that takes you typing 'www.JRandomWebsite.com' into your web browser, finds the InternetProtocol address of the site (which would look something like 64.94.110.11).

Practical upshot? You can remember www.amd.com instead of 64.41.192.105. And then they can change the name to point somewhere else if they need to (if something like the CodeRedBungle happens).

DNS is usually provided by a program called named(8) - usually a version of bind, the Berkeley Internet Name Daemon. See our NamedNotes page and our NameServer page for some definitions. We also have a DNSHowTo? and information on ICANN who control the political side of things.

RFC:1034 - Domain Names - Concepts and Facilities RFC:1035 - Domain Names - Implementations and Specification

DNS doesn't "just" turn names into numbers (a ForwardLookup) - there are different types of records:

• A? and AAAA? and A6?
• CNAME?
• LOC (to find the GPS location of a machine or site)
• MX? (to find an SMTP server for a domain)
• NS (to find a NameServer for domain)
• PTR? (for doing a ReverseLookup)
• TXT?