DNS query :-)

Hello,

I purchased a domain name and web hosting from a company X and now i have been approached by company Y to host my website with them. Company Y have made a very good offer.

What i want to know is:

1) I assume it's a simple case of getting company X to point my website domain name to company Y's domain name servers?

2) What if i then move to company Z to host my domain. Does that mean i have to advise comany Y or company X of the DNS move?

3) What if company X went bust, am i totally *******???

I know, a DNS newbie questions.

Thanks in advance
P

OK, lets back up and do some basic terminology

You register a domain with a registrar, such as Network Solutions, or Godaddy. You pay a fee, and you own the domain name.

You then have to tell your registrar (usually through a web page) who is your DNS resolver. You enter the IP addresses of the DNS server that resolve your domain.

Where you host your domain is actually separate, but most folks have a hosting service that does both the DNS resolution and virtual hosting.

So you can register paulmills.tv at a registrar, say Network Solutions.

You contract with a hosting service, say globaltap.com to host your site www.paulmills.tv and handle email to all hosts in *@paulmills.tv

There are rules, I think set by IANA, that require registrars to transfer your domain's registration to any other qualified registrar, no questions, no run arround.

So you can find a hosting service, point your registration records' DNS portions to the hosting service, and be happy.

If you later decide to change hosting services, you just point the DNS resolution records at your registrar, and let it propigate.

Its easy, and you don't to worry about a vendor going bankrupt.

Thanks fishtoprecords.

A few questions around your reply...



OK, when i pay the usual £10/$5 for the domain name registration for a year i would expect to be provided with a webpage which allows me to put in the IP address of the name servers owned by my hosting company or the IP address of my server? Is this not typically all done "behid the scene" when i sign up for web hosting with a company different to to that which registered by domain name?



So in this example you provide i would log onto Network Solutions (registrars of paulmills.tv) and point my domain to the name servers of globaltap.com? But when i move to another hosting company i.e 123reg.com do i then need to log onto Network Solutons and repoint? or do i log onto globaltap.com and change dns from there?




This would imply that if i registered my domain with Network Solutions and hosted with globaltap.com initially and then moved to 123reg.com i would have to point 123reg.com to DNS servers hosted by Network Solutions?


To clarify, my understanding of DNS so far is as follows (and may likely be incorrect) :-)

When i browse to pexample.com, my ISP forwards this DNS query to its DNS servers and if they cannot resolve they forward on untill it can be resolved. If i registered the domain pexample.com with Network Solutions, will they not be the first DNS servers my ISP queries? And if i move the hosting of my website to GoDaddy.com the query will still go to Network Solutons first but then be forwarded onto GoDaddy.com. Furthermore, if i moved to 123reg.com, the query will still go to Network Solutions but then onto GoDaddy.com and then 123reg.com ????

Cheers
P

I don't know if anything is typical. It depends on your registrar. I know both Godaddy and Networksolutions have web pages for this.

But I've never used a combined hosting service and registrar.
They may do it differently.

I keep them separate to make it easier for me to manage.




Depends on details. What you really have to do is have newisp.com setup their DNS servers to resolve your hosts, and then you change your registrar's pointers to point to newisp.com for resolution.

Typically its good form to leave both up until you know it works, then tell oldisp.net that you no longer are using them.



Moved what? You can move hosting separate from registration. They are separate ideas, altho some vendors can do both services.




DNS is distributed name service. So the "you" in your example varies as does the DNS server.

Let me make a more explicit example.

Fishy is sitting at his computer, which is connected to his ISP, say ATT.NET.

When Fishy's computer wants to resolve 'pexample.com' it finds its DNS, which is probably ns.att.net. So ns.att.net looks up pexample.com and sees if it knows the answer. If it does, it returns it to fishy's PC, and we browse away.

If not, ns.att.net looks for the root, .com DNS server, and asks it for pexample.com. What the root then does it look up the registration info (really DNS info) and returns the following information to ns.att.net:
The authorative DNS server for pexample.com is 111.222.333.444 (this being globaltap.com's DNS server)

With this, ns.att.net does another DNS query to the server at 111.222.333.444 and asks for "what is pexample.com really?

Then 111.222.333.444 (globaltap.com's DNS server) can respond with 70.123.102.56 to ns.att.net, which returns the answer in turn to fishy's computer.