Web Host and DNS

[AnthonyArde]

How exactly does dns work if i have a static ip address, who sorts out the dns section, do i need software?

I have been online and it looks like thirdparty companies sort the dns out??? how am i able to set up dns on my web server? windows with apache

Thanks

 

[steviewdr]

Yes - when you buy a domain name (a .com) you typically get a control panel to manage teh DNS.

 

-steve

[derwert]

AnthonyArde the way DNS works is like this(hopefully I explain this well).

 

When someone opens up their browser and goes to a site a query is made to their DNS server for that domain.

Their DNS server looks up the name server thats handles the queries for that domain then makes the query to that name server.

 

The name server keeps records of domains in what's called zone files.

Each zone file is for a different domain, it contains information about the domain, sub domains and what mail servers to send mail to along with some other information.

The DNS server looks in the zone file for that domain to see what record is there, most of the time the type of record will be what's called an A record.

 

An A record is used to point a domain name to an IP address.

Another type of record that is used is a CNAME record, it's used to point a domain to another domain; so this will cause more queries until an IP address is returned; but it can be useful at times.

 

So the record for that domain will get returned to you and if it was an A record then you will now have the IP address for the server that servers pages for that domain.

Your browser will now connect to that IP address and make an HTTP request and the web server will respond according to the request made.