A Domain Name System is a DNS. It is a fairly complex system, spread globally across hundreds of servers and containing many integrated infrastructure layers.
DNS is largely responsible for the conversion of human-readable domain names into IP addresses that are computer-usable. It is, in reality, the phone book of the internet, a massive directory combining names with numbers.
DNS records are considered the addresses connected with a particular domain. They define where requests that are connected with that domain should be submitted.
Where are these documents maintained? They are registered on the Name Server of your domain.
Well, they are managed by the domain name owner. Currently, this is exactly what you own when you own a domain name: you have the power to decide the Official Name Server and the content of the domain-related DNS information.
There are hundreds of individual types of resource records (RRs) in the DNS records for a domain, but only a handful of them are of general interest to most web hosting clients.
The RRs that are most important are:
A Records are the most basic DNS record type and are used to point an IP address to a domain or subdomain. Assigning a value to an A record is as easy as giving an IP address to where the domain or subdomain can point and a TTL to the DNS management panel. It is the primary record that a domain name is affiliated with.
A "Canonical name," this record maps the domain to another domain as an alias. It can be used to send traffic from one domain to another in lieu of HTTP redirects. Another widely used method of DNS entry is CNAME records and they are used to point a domain or subdomain to another hostname. If the value of the subdomain of the blog is ever changed, the value of the subdomain of the journal will also be changed.
As a host, we will use consumer CNAMEs as a way of being able to transparently alter the IP address of a server or server cluster without users needing to make their own DNS changes.
Mail Exchanger (MX) records are used according to the preference of the domain owners to help route email. When this form of request is made to the domain, the MX record itself determines which server(s) to try to send mail to. In the sense that they often require a "priority" attribute as part of their entry, they vary from A Records and CNAMEs. The priority number is used to mean which of the servers that are identified as MX records it can first want to access.
"Delegation name," this record acts like CNAME, but it also contains subdomains.
To store any text-based information that can be grabbed if necessary, a TXT record is used. Most frequently, we see TXT records used to store SPF data and validate ownership of domains.
You do not need to do anything at all if you register your domain name with your hosting account. The initial setup will be taken care of by your hosting firm, which is also your registrar, and you won't even need to think about it.
There are, however, a few occasions where you will have to edit your DNS documents or alter your name servers.
You may need to connect your domain name with your account by upgrading the Authoritative Name Servers of your domain name if you use a domain registrar other than your hosting business.
Alternatively, you may edit individual DNS Resource Records (RRs) yourself occasionally, but this can also trigger issues, especially for shared or cloud storage, which may have complex IP addresses.
If you are using a domain-based email service such as Google Applications, you may need to change the MX record to point mail traffic to the provider of the service.
Usually, if you use a Content Delivery Network, you either change individual resource records to point to the edge servers of the CDN or set the name servers of the CDN as the domain's Authoritative Name Server.
There is a domain management section on most hosting control panels that allows you to edit domain information, including name servers and DNS documents. Registrars of the domain would have a similar interface to change this information.