Computer Networks

( RCS-601 )
UNIT 5
APPLICATION LAYER DESIGN ISSUES

Computer Networks CSE / IT Department

APPLICATION LAYER DESIGN ISSUES

Computer Networks CSE / IT Department

 NEED OF DNS
• To identify an entity, the Internet uses the IP
address, which uniquely identifies the
connection of a host to the Internet. However,
people prefer to use names instead of
addresses. Therefore, we need a system that
can map a name to an address or an address
to a name.

Computer Networks CSE / IT Department

 1. What is the IP
address of
psitcoe.ac.in ?

It is 128.175.13.92

1. What is the
host name of
128.175.13.74

It is aktu.ac.in

Computer Networks CSE / IT Department

 Design Principles of DNS
 The naming system on which DNS is based is a hierarchical and
logical tree structure called the domain namespace.

 An organization obtains authority for parts of the name space,

and can add additional layers of the hierarchy

 In practice, allocation of the domain names generally follows

the allocation of IP address, e.g.,
 All hosts with network prefix 128.143/16 have domain name
suffix virginia.edu
 All hosts on network 128.143.136/24 are in the Computer
Science Department of the University of Virginia

Computer Networks CSE / IT Department

 NAME SPACE
• A name space that maps each address to a unique name can be organized in
two ways:

a. FLAT NAME SPACE

In this, a name is assigned to an address. A name in this space is a sequence
without structure.
Disadvantage: Cannot be used in large systems like Internet because it
must be centrally controlled to avoid ambiguity and duplication.

b. HIERARCHIAL NAME SPACE

Each name is made of several parts.
The first part can define the nature of organization, the second part can
define the name, the third part can define departments and so on.
The authority to assign and control the name spaces can be decentralized.

Computer Networks CSE / IT Department

 DOMAIN NAME SPACE
• To have a hierarchical name space, Domain Name Space was
designed. In this design, the names are defined in an inverted-
tree structure with the root at the top. The tree can have only
128 levels: level 0 (root) to level 127. Each level of the tree
defines a hierarchical level.

Computer Networks CSE / IT Department

• LABEL: Each node in a tree has a label, which is a
string with a maximum of 63 characters. The root
label is a null string. DNS requires that children of a
node have different labels, which guarantees the
uniqueness of the domain names.

• DOMAIN NAME: Each node in the tree has a

domain name. A full domain name is a sequence of
labels separated by dots(.). The domain names are
always read from the node upto the root.

Computer Networks CSE / IT Department

 Domain name system
 Each node in the DNS tree .

represents a DNS name

 Each branch below a node is a edu
DNS domain.
 DNS domain can contain hosts
or other domains (subdomains) virginia.edu

 Example:
DNS domains are www.virginia.edu cs.virginia.edu

., edu, virginia.edu,
cs.virginia.edu
neon.cs.virginia.edu

Computer Networks CSE / IT Department

• FULLY QUALIFIED DOMAIN NAME (FQDN):
– Every node in the DNS domain tree can be identified by a unique Fully
Qualified Domain Name (FQDN). The FQDN gives the position in the
DNS tree.
– In this, the label is terminated by a null string.
– It is a domain name that contains the full name of the host.
– It contains all labels, from the most specific to the most general, that
uniquely define the host.
Example
A device with the hostname myhost in the parent domain example.com has the fully
qualified domain name myhost.example.com. The FQDN uniquely distinguishes
the device from any other hosts called myhost in other domains.

• PARTIALLY QUALIFIED DOMAIN NAME (PQDN)

– In this, the label is not terminated by a null string.
– A PQDN starts with a node but does not reach the root.
– It is used when the name to be resolved belongs to the same site as the
client.
Computer Networks CSE / IT Department
Organizational top-level domains

com Commercial organizations

edu Educational institutions

gov Government institutions

int International organizations

mil U.S. military institutions

net Networking organizations

org Non-profit organizations

Computer Networks CSE / IT Department

Authority and Delegation
• Authority for the root domain is with the Internet
Corporation for Assigned Numbers and Names
(ICANN).
• ICANN delegates to accredited registrars (for gTLDs) and
countries for country code top level domains (ccTLDs) .
• Authority can be delegated further
• Chain of delegation can be obtained by reading domain
name from right to left.
• Unit of delegation is a “zone”.

 TLD - Top Level Domain

Computer Networks CSE / IT Department

 Hierarchy of Name Servers
• It is inefficient to store complete information of domain name
and their corresponding IP addresses into one computer . So to
solve this problem, the information is distributed among many
computers called DNS servers.
• So we let the root stand alone and create as many domains as
they are first level nodes.
• DNS allows domain to be divided further into smaller
domains.
• Each server can be responsible for either a large or small
domain.
• Zone:
Since the complete domain name hierarchy cannot be stored on a
single server, it is divided among many servers.
A zone is a server responsible for or has authority over domain
server.
The server makes a database called a zone-file and keeps all the
information for every node under that domain.
• Root Server
A root server is a server whose zone consists of a
whole tree.
A root server usually does not store any
information about domains but delegates its
authority to other servers keeping references to
those servers.
 Primary and Secondary Name Servers
• For each zone, there must be a primary name server and a secondary name
server
– The primary server (master server) maintains a zone file which has
information about the zone. Updates are made to the primary server
– The secondary server copies data stored at the primary server.
Adding a host:
• When a new host is added (“gold.cs.virginia.edu”) to a zone, the
administrator adds the IP information on the host (IP address and name) to
a configuration file on the primary server
RESOURCE RECORDS
• The database records of the distributed data base are called resource
records (RR)
• Resource records are stored in configuration files (zone files) at name
servers.

Computer Networks CSE / IT Department

 Domain Name Resolution
1. User program issues a request for
the IP address of a hostname Hostname (neon.tcpip-lab.edu)

HTTP Resolver
2. Local resolver formulates a DNS IP address (128.143.71.21)

query to the name server of the

IP address (128.143.71.21)
host

(neon.tcpip-lab.edu)
3. Name server checks if it is

Hostname
authorized to answer the query.
a) If yes, it responds.
b) Otherwise, it will query other
name servers, starting at the Name
root tree server

4. When the name server has the

answer it sends it to the resolver.

Computer Networks CSE / IT Department

Types of Domain Name Resolution
• Recursive
• Iterative

1) Recursive Resolution
• Client requires the Local Server to give either the requested
mapping or an error message. A DNS Query is generated by
the application program to the resolver to fetch the destination
IP Address. The Query is then forward to the local DNS
Server. If it knows the IP Address, it sends a response to the
resolver. Assuming, it does not know the IP Address, it sends
the query to the root name server.
• The root name server contains information of about at
least one server of Top Level Domain. The query is
then sent to the respective Top-Level Domain server.
If it contains the mapping, the response is sent back to
the root server and then to host’s local server.
• If it doesn’t contain the mapping, it should contain
the IP Address of destination’s local DNS Server. The
local DNS server knows the destination host’s IP
Address.
• The information is then sent back to the top-level
domain server, then to the root server and then to the
host’s Local DNS Server and finally to the host
2) Iterative Resolution:
• The main difference between iterative and recursive resolution
is that, here each server that does not know the mapping sends
the IP Address of the next server to the one requested it.
• Here, client allows the server to return the best answer it can
give as a match or as a referral.
• A DNS Query is generated by the application program to the
resolver to fetch the destination IP Address. The Query is then
forward to the local DNS Server. Assuming, it does not know
the IP Address, it sends the query to the root name server.
• The root name server returns the IP Address of the
Top-Level Domain Server to the Local Server. The
Top-Level Domain server is contacted by Local
Server and it returns either the IP of the destination
host or its local DNS Server.
• If it returns the server’s address, then by contacting
the destination’s Local DNS Server, we get the IP
Address of the destination host.
• The response/mapping is then passed from host’s
local DNS server to the resolver and then finally to
the host.