DNS servers

visser · Post by **visser** » 25 Jun 2008, 14:48

So ive been doing a large amount of research and have come leeps and bounds compared to where i used to be on this subject. That subject being DNS servers.

for those of you that dont know a DNS server is a server that handles requests for certain host names. Think of it like this. A car is going down a road. it has the name of the house it needs to go to but doesnt know the street address. The DNS server takes the name of the house and turns it into a street address or vice versa. So a DNS server turns a typed out name (www.suck-o.com) into an ip adress (62.75.148.170)

my curiosity is if i set up a DNS server on the local network, for the other computers on the network that im configuring to have a static IP would i tell those computers to use my ISP provided DNS server or would i use the DNS server that i just created? Also what stops my DNS server from making visser.com an actual site?

thanks again in advance!

Post by **ayu** » 25 Jun 2008, 15:40

You can set the computers to use your DNS server and then make your DNS server forward the request that it can't solve, to your ISP (or broadband router)

Also if website.com is resolved to 85.35.63.46 on your ISP's DNS server, you can set it to 127.0.0.1 if you want to, on your DNS, and then if a computer in your network wants to access website.com it will be resolved to 127.0.0.1, since it can be resolved in your DNS server it wont be forwarded to another DNS server.

visser · Post by **visser** » 25 Jun 2008, 15:43

so if its on the network then my DNS server would handle it.

but if someone wasnt on the network then their DNS would take car of it, and becuase example.com is only registered on my DNS server, they wont be able to resolve it?

Post by **ayu** » 25 Jun 2008, 15:50

Ok, you see...

you can set your own DNS server to resolve ANY domain if you want to, you can make it resolve google.com to 127.0.0.1 if you wanted to, but that would be pretty stupid now wouldnt it? because only the ones that uses your DNS would be able to see it, as in the ones in your own network.

And let's say you do set google.com to 127.0.0.1 on your servers, then you wouldnt reach googles website of course, because it's now resolved to 127.0.0.1 on your network. And it wouldnt get resolved any further, because as far as your DNS server knows the querry (resolve request) is now solved.

But let's say you only add google.com in your dns server, then it can't resolve ANY other domain names since they are not in it's zone, so it will forward the request onto the next DNS server, in this case your ISP.

visser · Post by **visser** » 25 Jun 2008, 15:58

SWEEET! i now undertand how DNS servers work. lol took me long enough! thanks!