Root name server
A root name server is a name server for the root zone of the Domain Name System (DNS) of the Internet. It directly answers requests for records in the root zone and answers other requests by returning a list of the authoritative name servers for the appropriate top-level domain (TLD). The root name servers are a critical part of the Internet infrastructure because they are the first step in translating (resolving) human readable host names into IP addresses that are used in communication between Internet hosts.
A combination of limits in the DNS and certain protocols, namely the practical size of unfragmented User Datagram Protocol (UDP) packets, resulted in a decision to limit the number of root servers to thirteen server addresses. The use of anycast addressing permits the actual number of root server instances to be much larger, and is 504 as of 17 January 2016.
Root domain
The DNS is a hierarchical naming system for computers, services, or any resource participating in the Internet. The top of that hierarchy is the root domain. The root domain does not have a formal name and its label in the DNS hierarchy is an empty string. All fully qualified domain names (FQDNs) on the Internet can be regarded as ending with this empty string for the root domain, and therefore ending in a full stop character (the label delimiter), e.g., www.example.com.. This is generally implied rather than explicit, as modern DNS software does not actually require that the terminating dot be included when attempting to translate a domain name to an IP address.
Name server
A name server is a computer hardware or software server that implements a network service for providing responses to queries against a directory service. It translates an often humanly-meaningful, text-based identifier to a system-internal, often numeric identification or addressing component. This service is performed by the server in response to a service protocol request.
An example of a name server is the server component of the Domain Name System (DNS), one of the two principal name spaces of the Internet. The most important function of DNS servers is the translation (resolution) of human-memorable domain names and hostnames into the corresponding numeric Internet Protocol (IP) addresses, the second principal name space of the Internet which is used to identify and locate computer systems and resources on the Internet.
Domain Name System
The Internet maintains two principal namespaces: the domain name hierarchy and the IP address system. The Domain Name System maintains the domain namespace and provides translation services between these two namespaces. Internet name servers implement the Domain Name System. The top hierarchy of the Domain Name System is served by the root name servers maintained by delegation by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). Below the root, Internet resources are organized into a hierarchy of domains, administered by the respective registrars and domain name holders. A DNS name server is a server that stores the DNS records, such as address (A, AAAA) records, name server (NS) records, and mail exchanger (MX) records for a domain name (see also List of DNS record types) and responds with answers to queries against its database.
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