Implementation of the Domain Name System

ABSTRACT

The Domain Name System, DNS, is a distributed database and associated protocols that provides naming and data retrieval services for the DARPA Internet. The name space is hierarchical and extensible, and was designed to be partitioned along organizational boundaries rather than by network or other constraint. The database includes host and mail information at present, but is extensible as well.The system incorporates much prior art, but is unique in its combination of an indefinitely extensible and partitionable name space, large and heterogeneous community of users, hosts, and networks, use of both datagram and connection services, and reliance on caching to provide acceptable performance.