DNS, short for Domain Name System, is one of the most important concepts in the internet and technology area. Its basic function is to convert the human-readable domain name, like dns.techd.systems to a computer-friendly IP address, like 13.237.61.233
IP addresses are assigned to each device connected to the internet and it helps to find other devices available on the internet. In very common terms, it’s like finding a house address from the street name.
How do DNS works?
When a user enters a URL in the browser address bar, it checks for the IP address behind that domain which connects to the actual server.
Source: https://www.wpbeginner.com/glossary/dns/
Above is a fantastic illustration of how DNS works to find the IP address behind the domain. DNS Servers are special servers which hold DNS records of domain names.
What are DNS records?
DNS records are different type of data assigned to the domain name to connect to web-based services. Multiple different types of records exist with only 5-6 using regularly.
A records
It’s very safe to say that this is the most popular and common type of DNS records. It stores IPv4 of a specific domain or subdomain.
CNAME records
Commonly used to associate a www subdomain with the primary or canonical domain, such as www.example.com with example.com.
MX records
Used to associate a domain with an email service. It can hold multiple records usually pointing to the same service provider.
TXT records
Used to associate any arbitrary text to a domain, like SPF records, domain verification, etc.
What is DNS Propagation?
When you change the DNS records of any domain it takes time for all the DNS servers to fetch new data. During this time, some DNS servers will show old records while others will show new records. Online tools like dns.techd.systems shows the status of DNS Propagation.
