Web Hosting Jargon – Name Server |
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Ever feel like you’re talking to someone from a foreign country when all you want is a little help with your website? This series explains what some of the web hosting industry’s technical terms mean, so the next time you contact tech support you’ll feel like you’re talking to someone who lives a little closer to home. Today we’re going to look at the job of a name server.
Name Server – The internet is made up of millions of computers located all around the world. Life would be much easier if these computers all talked to each other and knew exactly what you intended when you click a link on a website or enter a web address. Due to the internet’s technical nature, this perfect world doesn’t exist, so some of the busy work is left up to you, the user.
Whenever you type in an internet address such as http://blog.readysetconnect.com, your computer has no idea what remote machine it has to connect to. There are millions out there, but where should it go? How should it get there? The solution to this problem is the real-world equivalent of a telephone book. Given a name, you can search a telephone book to find a person’s phone number, and in many cases their home address as well. The listing in the phone book and the concept of a name server are synonymous. The name server’s job is to point the user (or in this case, the computer) to the destination where the website can be found. If someone moves or changes his or her phone number, the entry in the telephone book must be updated.
So what does a name server do?
The name server acts as the link between the user’s computer and the remote destination in that it tells the computer where it needs to go. Your job, when setting up a website, is to enter the name server into the phone book. Normally this is accomplished at the domain registrar website (the place you used to register your domain). The registrar will give you the option to configure anywhere from one to four or more name servers. Usually you will enter two, however more adds redundancy. After you update the name server, it can take anywhere from 0 – 24 hours for the registry to update. Once everything is online, your computer will know where to go when accessing your website, assuming the name server is configured correctly. That’s usually something you don’t have to worry about, and your web host will be able to help you if you have any problems.
For more information on DNS propagation, check out this post.
Mar 6th, 2009 at 7:50 pm
Hello,
Thank you for explaining what name servers are. I was having trouble getting my domain registrar to update my name servers. I didn’t realize that it takes 24 hours for the DNS to change. Ty for that!
Mar 7th, 2009 at 7:25 am
Its a bit more complicated then that, but the DNS is just a big phone book, the servers that run the internet have expanded to include a bunch that were not available in the beginning, .tv .us .biz these where added to the orginal .gov .com .net .org model.
Mar 10th, 2009 at 10:17 pm
As a smple explanation name server can be seen as a software that allows us to map domain names to ip address of the website. It is not really a hardware as the name might sound. NAMESERVER is instead a software application which is usually run on the web server itself.
Mar 26th, 2009 at 2:40 am
Aha, I should agree with Kronik Media and say, that DNS easily can be soft =), that runs on the web servers.
But in general – good jobs, partner! Thanks for good explanation!
Jul 6th, 2009 at 10:20 am
Well all depends on the propagation by the domain registrar..some times48 hrs also Kronik Media has explained above that the virtual DNS modifications do it really works practically if you have done this kind of stuff pls share your experiments.
Jul 7th, 2009 at 8:04 am
Finally I won’t feel like a complete idiot when my friends (all went into IT, only I got into marketing) talk about this stuff. Are you planning to make a series of articles like this ? Or have you already and I’m just dumb for not reading more before commenting ?:P
Jul 29th, 2009 at 2:26 am
Thanks for clearing this up for me. I never really understood what a name server was until now.
Aug 18th, 2009 at 12:08 am
Hey Dan,
Thanks for explaining what name servers are and how they help a common netizen like me!
My website is hosted on the server of a Verisign secured web host, LimeDomains. Now, I’d ask the company to update my name server so that I can avail its benefit for addressing my online needs.