Loza's Blog: Dns Server

DNS - stands for Domain Name System.

The DNS Tcp/Ip protocols job is to translate a name into an Ip address so that you reach the destination site.

Eg: When you type into your search engine say "google.com" it goes to your dns server and asks for the name to be translated into an Ip address. Your isp in most cases has set this up in the modem so that it points to their DNS server which is basically a large list of Domain names and Ip addresses.

Say I new the Ip address of a website I could use this instead of typing the name, the only problem is that they rotate the dns servers.

Eg: 199.59.148.82 this belongs to twitter. : http://www.whois.net/ip-address-lookup/199.59.148.82

You can work out the Net range of a Domain by going to : http://www.whois.net/ip-address-lookup.
Type in a Domain name say Twitter.com and this will give you the net range.
Twitter is : 199.59.148.0 - 199.59.151.255

You can download a Domain Name Speed test by going to : http://www.grc.com/dns/benchmark.htm

Download the tool from : http://www.grc.com/files/DNSBench.exe

Once run go to Nameservers then click on Run Benchmark.

I waited around 30 seconds or so then pressed stop.

In the first example you can see that mine is set to the modems Gateway 192.168.2.254 which is set to my ISP Dns server.

The list shows fastest first.

The next fastest is googles Dns Server. Their Preferred dns server is 8.8.8.8 and Alternate dns server is 8.8.4.4.

In the second example I have changed my DNS settings in network adapter to Googles dns server 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4.