How DNS works - Githubissues

hieuhtr / Blog

Don’t be lazy. Don’t make excuses. No one cares. Work fucking harder.

Other

6 stars 2 forks source link

How DNS works #29

Open hieuhtr opened 7 years ago

hieuhtr commented 7 years ago

Basic concept and information

DNS stands for Domain Name System
Its purpose is to resolve and translate human-readable website name to IPv4 or IPv6 address
It's basically a large Database which resides on various servers around the world, that contains the names and IP address of various host/domains.
Without DNS, we would only be able to visit any website directly via IP address, no human-readable anymore
DNS works on both the TCP and UDP Protocols, port 53

How does DNS work?

Whenever you visit a domain such as github.com, the browser's journey begins >>>

Step 1: Request information

TODO: Type github.com to address bar of Chrome, it's a new request for browser

Step 2: DNS cache on Chrome

TODO: DNS query on chrome's cache, see chrome://net-internals/#dns
True: Return IP address of this domain for making a request
False: Didn't know it before --> call OS (step3)

Step 3: DNS cache on OS

TODO: OS receive request from chrome, then check its DNS cache, see mDNSResponder on MacOS
True: Return IP of github.com for browser
False: OS didn't know it before same as browser, OS call the Resolver (Recursive DNS servers)

Step 4: The Resolver on ISP (Internet Service Provider)

TODO: local OS sends a DNS Query to the Resolver by using UDP Protocol over Port 53, the Resolver will check its cache to find IP for github.com
True: Return IP address for OS
False: ISP didn't know it before same as our OS. ISP will ask the Root server

Step 5: The ROOT servers - see https://www.iana.org/domains/root/servers

Fact: We have 13 root server for DNS around the world. They don’t know the answer, but they know where to find it.
TODO: Root look at the first part of request, reading from right to left .com <--
Direct our request to Top-Level Domain (TLD) name servers for .com, it's Verisign TLD
ISP will store TLD information, no need ask the root again.

Step 6: The TLD nameservers

TODO: The TLD nameservers review the next part of our request - github
Direct our query to the nameservers responsible for this specific domain
These Authoritative nameservers are responsible for knowing all the information about a specific domain, which are stored in DNS records

Step 7: The Authoritative nameservers

TODO: The Resolver (ISP) retrieves the A record for github.com from the authoritative nameservers and stores the record in ISP's local cache
More keywords: time-to-live value, Domain Registrar, types of records

Step 8: Receive the answer

TODO: Resolver returns the A record back to OS
OS stores the record in its cache, reads the IP address then passes information to Chrome
Chrome stores the record in its cache

Finally, Chrome opens a connection to the webserver and receives the site.

This entire process, from start to finish, takes only milliseconds to complete.

Reference: