Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.
How Root Servers Currently Work
Author: John Brewer Posted: 5/2/1999; 10:10:58 PM Topic: 36 .Com Registrars? Msg #: 5546 (In response to 5544) Prev/Next: 5545 / 5547
There's been a lot of confusion over how the current DNS system works. As I read my copy of W. Richard Stevens' TCP/IP Illustrated, Volume I (pp 190-191):* There are currently 13 root name servers, serving up theoretically identical information (the IP addresses of the root servers can be found at ftp://ftp.rs.internic.net/netinfo/root-servers.txt). Every primary domain name sever for a second-level domain must be configured with these IP addresses, since you can't do a DNS on the root name servers, any more than you can call directory assistance for the number for directory assistance without already knowing the number for directory assistance.
* Each root name server knows all first and second level domain names. I'm not sure if this applies to second-level domains in country top-level domains (e.g. foobar.us or baz.uk), but it sounds like it does.
* It's not clear to me from my limited reading if the domain name servers are to be queried round-robin, or if a primary name server should fine the one with the lowest latency and stick with it.
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