6 ms·

The website is unknown – How DNS works

177 points by dbrgn 11y ago

aroch 11y ago
As it turns out, one of the referenced sites exist: http://zone.vision http://zone.vision http://zone.vision/#/news.ycombinator.com http://zone.vision/#/news.ycombinator.com
- aeden 11y ago
  Yep, this is another tool we built to help troubleshoot zone issues. We also use it to provide data for some parts of the DNSimple UI since zone.vision has an underlying API (http://api.zone.vision/ http://api.zone.vision/)
leuu 11y ago
It's very nice. I think it needs a summary at the side or something, so we know where we are.
- sudhakarssd 11y ago
  I agree there should be little more description.
tehchromic 11y ago
wow. I was not expecting that level of quality! I also did not believe one could caricature the classes of dns server so accurately.
talideon 11y ago
It glosses over glue records, which it really shouldn't.
- 0x0 11y ago
  Agreed, I would imagine for someone who doesn't know about glue records, the "road trip to ns1.dnsimple.com" must be super confusing since it doesn't explain how to find their location.
  - logingone 11y ago
    Ah, I'll confirm that imagining. I'm unfamiliar with glue records. How I've not encountered them I don't know, and it should possibly concern me. Maybe I have and have forgotten. Anyway, I was thinking hang on, back to square one, where do we get the ns ip addresses, we're going to go round in circles. Thanks for filling in the missing piece.
iamd3vil 11y ago
Awesome.I sent this to my friend who doesn't know anything about DNS and he told me this is awesome. I wasn't expecting that.
htor 11y ago
How servers work: https://xkcd.com/869/ https://xkcd.com/869/
sudhakarssd 11y ago
This is amazing and innovative. even for me being web developer its difficult to understand, how dns actually works ;)
jchomali 11y ago
This is awesome! Thanks for sharing!
- dbrgn 11y ago
  You're welcome, I just stumbled over it on Twitter :)
calebm 11y ago
I love the illustrations :) You should create a series of kids books explaining such topics, and I'll buy them... for my kids.
AndyMcConachie 11y ago
"The management duty of most top-level domains (TLDs) belong to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN)" This is not a true statement. Each TLD is controlled by its respective registry, which is certainly not ICANN.
- pbreit 11y ago
  Perhaps "manage" vs "control"?
  - AndyMcConachie 11y ago
    ICANN doesn't really control TLDs either. All ICANN does is grant monopolies. Once the monopoly is granted they do very little. You could argue they're a regulator, but they have close to zero enforcement power.
veb 11y ago
I didn't even know .works TLD was a thing. Feels like the 'market' is oversaturated with a new one every second. Here's a link to a bunch I didn't know existed: https://iwantmyname.com/domains/new-gtld-domain-extensions https://iwantmyname.com/domains/new-gtld-domain-extensions I did smile when I saw it was by DNSimple, absolutely love using them. EDIT: I'm not a shill for these guys, but I signed up with them very early on and their customer service was fantastic. What made me become a (hopefully) life-long customer was when I emailed them to say that as a result of a botched cochlear implant surgery leaving me very sick, and out of work I could no longer pay my plan -- and they actually offered to help pay all my services I had with them until I was back on my feet! It was a small token on their behalf but so appreciated by me (but I asked a friend to meet the repayments instead to try maintain some self dignity). I just thought I should share this wee story!
- snug 11y ago
  Full list here https://publicsuffix.org/list/effective_tld_names.dat https://publicsuffix.org/list/effective_tld_names.dat
  - weppos 11y ago
    The PSL has a quite different meaning, this list is enhanced with a lot of suffixes that are not actually TLDs. You may want to refer to https://github.com/weppos/ianawhois https://github.com/weppos/ianawhois instead. DISCLAIMER: I'm both a maintainer of the Mozilla PSL and the linked GitHub repo.
Blahah 11y ago
So, according to this the .COM TLD server, when asked to resolve dnsimple.com, would say 'ask ns1.dnsimple.com'? That still requires resolving dnsimple.com, which seems circular. Surely the .COM TLD server would give the IP address of the authoritative name servers for the domain?
- schoen 11y ago
  Yep, it would. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_Name_System#Circular_dependencies_and_glue_records https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_Name_System#Circular_de...
  - tedunangst 11y ago
    Worth mentioning too the concept of bailiwick, which Wikipedia doesn't really cover.
  - Blahah 11y ago
    Thanks! They should really add this to the guide, because it's a confusing step at the moment.
yc1010 11y ago
I think the whole DNS mechanism is broken badly Beside the hundreds of new nonsense TLDs you have domains being taken down for copyright infringment or dissident suppression, name squatting and of course domain name frontrunning by registrars And then there are of course DNS aimed DDOS attacks etc Something needs to be done (yes I heard of namecoin) since the web as we know it is getting shittier by the year :(
- simoncion 11y ago
  Front running is more or less fixed by naming and shaming the registrars. I'll start: GoDaddy is well known for domain name frontrunning. If you search for the availability of a domain using their website, they will likely temporarily register that name, forcing you to use them as a registrar. Use an alternative like gandi.net or Google Domains. > ...then there are of course DNS aimed DDOS attacks... Traffic amplification attacks are possible with protocols that return more data than one sends to trigger the return. > Something needs to be done... Do you, yc1010 have either a specific list of problems with DNS-the-protocol and/or DNS-the-distributed-name-to-address-mapping-system or a set of proposed solutions? :)
yareally 11y ago
I always preferred this little illustration for how DNS worked[1]. It's similar to the linked one, but more minimal and to the point. I had a 1920x1200 copy around somewhere I used for a desktop background, but can't find it at the moment. [1] http://gdihouston.github.io/intro-programming-concepts/images/how-web-works.png http://gdihouston.github.io/intro-programming-concepts/image...
tyrick 11y ago
Cute. I didn't know nameservers had so much personality.

177 points by dbrgn 11y ago

aroch 11y ago

As it turns out, one of the referenced sites exist: http://zone.vision http://zone.vision http://zone.vision/#/news.ycombinator.com http://zone.vision/#/news.ycombinator.com

aeden 11y ago
Yep, this is another tool we built to help troubleshoot zone issues. We also use it to provide data for some parts of the DNSimple UI since zone.vision has an underlying API (http://api.zone.vision/ http://api.zone.vision/)

leuu 11y ago

It's very nice. I think it needs a summary at the side or something, so we know where we are.

sudhakarssd 11y ago
I agree there should be little more description.

tehchromic 11y ago

wow. I was not expecting that level of quality! I also did not believe one could caricature the classes of dns server so accurately.

talideon 11y ago

It glosses over glue records, which it really shouldn't.

0x0 11y ago
Agreed, I would imagine for someone who doesn't know about glue records, the "road trip to ns1.dnsimple.com" must be super confusing since it doesn't explain how to find their location.
- logingone 11y ago
  Ah, I'll confirm that imagining. I'm unfamiliar with glue records. How I've not encountered them I don't know, and it should possibly concern me. Maybe I have and have forgotten. Anyway, I was thinking hang on, back to square one, where do we get the ns ip addresses, we're going to go round in circles. Thanks for filling in the missing piece.

iamd3vil 11y ago

Awesome.I sent this to my friend who doesn't know anything about DNS and he told me this is awesome. I wasn't expecting that.

htor 11y ago

How servers work: https://xkcd.com/869/ https://xkcd.com/869/

sudhakarssd 11y ago

This is amazing and innovative. even for me being web developer its difficult to understand, how dns actually works ;)

jchomali 11y ago

This is awesome! Thanks for sharing!

dbrgn 11y ago
You're welcome, I just stumbled over it on Twitter :)

calebm 11y ago

I love the illustrations :) You should create a series of kids books explaining such topics, and I'll buy them... for my kids.

AndyMcConachie 11y ago

"The management duty of most top-level domains (TLDs) belong to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN)" This is not a true statement. Each TLD is controlled by its respective registry, which is certainly not ICANN.

pbreit 11y ago
Perhaps "manage" vs "control"?
- AndyMcConachie 11y ago
  ICANN doesn't really control TLDs either. All ICANN does is grant monopolies. Once the monopoly is granted they do very little. You could argue they're a regulator, but they have close to zero enforcement power.

veb 11y ago

I didn't even know .works TLD was a thing. Feels like the 'market' is oversaturated with a new one every second. Here's a link to a bunch I didn't know existed: https://iwantmyname.com/domains/new-gtld-domain-extensions https://iwantmyname.com/domains/new-gtld-domain-extensions I did smile when I saw it was by DNSimple, absolutely love using them. EDIT: I'm not a shill for these guys, but I signed up with them very early on and their customer service was fantastic. What made me become a (hopefully) life-long customer was when I emailed them to say that as a result of a botched cochlear implant surgery leaving me very sick, and out of work I could no longer pay my plan -- and they actually offered to help pay all my services I had with them until I was back on my feet! It was a small token on their behalf but so appreciated by me (but I asked a friend to meet the repayments instead to try maintain some self dignity). I just thought I should share this wee story!

snug 11y ago
Full list here https://publicsuffix.org/list/effective_tld_names.dat https://publicsuffix.org/list/effective_tld_names.dat
- weppos 11y ago
  The PSL has a quite different meaning, this list is enhanced with a lot of suffixes that are not actually TLDs. You may want to refer to https://github.com/weppos/ianawhois https://github.com/weppos/ianawhois instead. DISCLAIMER: I'm both a maintainer of the Mozilla PSL and the linked GitHub repo.

Blahah 11y ago

So, according to this the .COM TLD server, when asked to resolve dnsimple.com, would say 'ask ns1.dnsimple.com'? That still requires resolving dnsimple.com, which seems circular. Surely the .COM TLD server would give the IP address of the authoritative name servers for the domain?

schoen 11y ago
Yep, it would. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_Name_System#Circular_dependencies_and_glue_records https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_Name_System#Circular_de...
- tedunangst 11y ago
  Worth mentioning too the concept of bailiwick, which Wikipedia doesn't really cover.
- Blahah 11y ago
  Thanks! They should really add this to the guide, because it's a confusing step at the moment.

yc1010 11y ago

I think the whole DNS mechanism is broken badly Beside the hundreds of new nonsense TLDs you have domains being taken down for copyright infringment or dissident suppression, name squatting and of course domain name frontrunning by registrars And then there are of course DNS aimed DDOS attacks etc Something needs to be done (yes I heard of namecoin) since the web as we know it is getting shittier by the year :(

simoncion 11y ago
Front running is more or less fixed by naming and shaming the registrars. I'll start: GoDaddy is well known for domain name frontrunning. If you search for the availability of a domain using their website, they will likely temporarily register that name, forcing you to use them as a registrar. Use an alternative like gandi.net or Google Domains. > ...then there are of course DNS aimed DDOS attacks... Traffic amplification attacks are possible with protocols that return more data than one sends to trigger the return. > Something needs to be done... Do you, yc1010 have either a specific list of problems with DNS-the-protocol and/or DNS-the-distributed-name-to-address-mapping-system or a set of proposed solutions? :)

yareally 11y ago

I always preferred this little illustration for how DNS worked[1]. It's similar to the linked one, but more minimal and to the point. I had a 1920x1200 copy around somewhere I used for a desktop background, but can't find it at the moment. [1] http://gdihouston.github.io/intro-programming-concepts/images/how-web-works.png http://gdihouston.github.io/intro-programming-concepts/image...

tyrick 11y ago

Cute. I didn't know nameservers had so much personality.