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Question about how web domains work (lemmy.one)

submitted 2 years ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Hello fellow Lemmings! I hope this is the right place to ask this. I don't understand how web domains work. Let's say I want to buy the domain "abcdefghi.net". I can go to a domain provider like haruba or godaddy and just buy it. but how can they, a private, sell me these domains? I'm not talking about the hosting, but just the domain. where do they register this domain I'm buying? isn't it possible to register it myself instead of paying these services to do it for me?

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Q: So does ICANN have its own Doman Name Server (for those who dont know: list of domain and IPs, like a phone catalog) that the other commercial DNS' (like local ISPs and Google DNS and cloudflare DNS) is connected directly to?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Yes. ICANN has the root DNS servers which point to the DNS servers of the registries (company that manages a domain extension in exchange for a hefty sum each year) which point at the DNS servers of the registrar (company authorized by the registry to sell domains) which either hosts your DNS entries or they can point to any server you tell them.

The commercial DNS you mention are called resolvers and are specialized in retrieving records from the linked chain of servers I mentioned above and caching them so it'll take less time.

You could point your own resolver to the ICANN root server and then set up your computer to use that resolver.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago (2 children)

A small correction: the registrar directs the registry (on your behalf) to configure the registry's DNS servers to point at whichever DNS servers you specify to host the domain, which default to the registrar's DNS servers. The chain of delegation is most commonly either:

root -> registry -> registrar

root -> registry -> another DNS hosting provider (CloudFlare, AWS Route53, DNS Made Easy, etc)

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago

This is really cool. So if I set my domain's DNS on the registrar's website, that DNS record is propogated to the registry? I have had this change start working in under five minutes. It's insane how fast that is given what is actually being done.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago

Thank you! I didn't know it was like that, but it makes perfect sense.