Domain Name System protocol or DNS is one of the most useful and popular networking protocol. It can be referred to as the Internet Address book to look for locations for various resources on the internet. In this guide we will introduce the basics of how DNS works and various types of DNS records.
How DNS works
Before we dive deep into DNS and DNS records, let us first discuss what DNS manages, i.e. Domain Names.
Domain Names
Domain names are identification strings that are used to refer to an address to a certain resource on the internet such as a website hosted on a server. Domain names can contain letters, numbers or hyphens separated by periods. Domain names are best understood when read from right to left. For example, a domain name as shown below makes more sense read from right to left.
www.google.com
mail.google.com
formums.plus.google.com
The above examples are examples of Top-Level Domains.
Every term from right to left that is separated by a period is considered to refer to a specific subdomain. A sub domain can contain its own standalone applications and services but still connected to the main domain.
Domain Name Levels
Domain Names are available in various types also known as levels. The following are various types of domain names:
Top-Level Domains
Top-Level Domains or TLD refers to the suffix or the last extension of a domain name. There are limited list of Top-Level-Domain extensions. These include:
.com- Commercial Business.org- Organizations, mostly refers to non-profit organizations.gov- Government agencies or services..net- Network Organizations.edu- Education Organizations.mil- Military
However, Top-Level Domains are also classified into two main sub-categories; Generic Top-Level Domains gTLDs and Country Code Top-Level domains ccTLDs.
Generic Top-Level Domains identifies the class which a domain name is associated with such as com. org. Country Code TLDs are two letter domain extensions assigned to a specific country or geographic locations such as .us, .uk, .fr
Other type of domain such as nTLDs or New Top-Level-Domains mainly set to organizations for a specific purpose or service such as .love, .to, .coffee
