A CASE STUDY ON DOMAIN NAME SYSTEM (DNS)

1
PRIYADARSHIN DAS , 2 SANIA QUASMI

DEPARTMENT OF ELECTRONICS AND COMMUNICATION ENGINEERING

MALLABHUM INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY,BISHNUPUR,BANKURA

1 2
priyadarshinidas.980@gmail.com , saniaquasmi123@gmail.com

ABSTRACT to each of entities.Most prominently,it translates

The Domain Name System (DNS) is a critical
component of the global Internet infrastructure.
Throughout its history,its design and
administration has experienced significant
dynamic changes as the Internet itself has
evolved.It has different features which makes it
much more important for us.The structure of
DNS is Name Space which have different
components.DNS has certain adnvantages and
disadvantagesThough DNS is very
advantageous for users it has its own securitiy
issues.
KEYWORDS
DNS,APARNET,IP
Address,DNSSEC,SPOOFING
1 INTRODUCTION
The Domain Name System is a hierarchical
distributed naming system for
computers,services or any resource connected to
the internet or a private network.It associates
various information with domain name assigned
domain names,which can be easily memorized
by humans,to the numerical IP addresses needed
for the purpose of computer services and
devices worldwide.Domain Name System
distributes the responsibility of assigning
domain name and mapping those names to IP
addresses by designating authorative name
serves for each domain.It also specifies the
technical functionality of the database service
which is at its core.It defines the Domain Name
Sytem protocol,detailed specification of
structure and data communication exchanges
used in Domain Name System ,a part of the
Internet Protocol Suite.
2 IP ADDRESSES AND DOMAN
NAME
The fundamental identifiers on the internet is an
IP address.Each host connected to the Internet
has a unique IP address(IPv4 or IPv6).The
uniqueness is guaranteed through allocation
from one single pool(IANA-RIR system).The
operating system use the identifiers as
―binding‖points during networking.TCP/IP is
the transport protocol used on the Internet .
People prefer to use easy –to-remember names
instead of IPaddresses.Domain names are
alphanumeric names for IP addresses. For
eg.,www.nlnetlabs.nl or 213.154.224.1.
2.1 DNS AND ITS ORIGIN
In the year 1970’s Advanced Research Project
Agency Network(ARPANET),tables where
maintained mapping host-names to IP
addresses.Tables were pulled from the single
machine which resulted in traffic and load,name
collisions and consistency.But DNS provides a
scalable distributed lookup mechanism.In The
year 1983 DNS was created by Paul
Mockapetris(RFCs 822 and 823).Then gradually
it has been modified ,updated and
enhanced.DNS Security extensions being the
most recent. Before DNS there was the
HOSTS.TXT file (until 1985), the name-to-IP
address was done by downloading a single file
(hosts.txt ) from a central server with FTP.
Names in hosts.txt are not structured .The
hosts.txt file still works on most operating
systems. It can be used to define local names.
2.2 IMPORTANCE OF DNS
DNS is like a phone book for the
Internet. If you know a person’s name
but don’t know their telephone number,
you can simply look it up in a phone
book. DNS provides this same service
to the Internet.
For example: When we
visit http://dyn.com in a browser, our
computer uses DNS to retrieve the
website’s IP address of 204.13.248.115.
Without DNS, we would only be able to
visit our website (or any website) by
visiting its IP address directly, such
as http://204.13.248.115..
2.3 FEATURES OF DNS
2.3.1 SCALABILITY
 .No limit to the size of the
database(i.e, one server can
have 40,000,000 names).
 No limit to the number of
queries (24,000 queries are
easily handled per second).
 Queries distributed among
masters,slaves and caches.
2.3.2 RELIABILITY
 Data is replicated(data from
master is copied to multiple
slaves & system can deal with
outrage of servers)
  Clients will typically query 3. WORKING PRINCIPLE OF DNS
local catches.
 DNS protocol can use either Root level Domain
Server
UDP or TCP. STEP 2

IDS FORWARDS THE

REQUEST OR
2.3.3 DYNAMICITY OBTAININGTHE IP ADDRESS
OF CISCO.COM OVER TO
ROOT-LEVEL DOMAIN
STEP 3 Top level
SERVER(RLDS)
domain server
 Database can be updated RLDS DOES NOT HAVE THE
ANSWER EITHER SO IT
dynamically(add/delete/modi Internal FORWARDS THE REQUEST OVER
 . com
TO TOP-LEVEL DOMAIN  .edu
fication)
DNS Server SERVER(TLDS)
 .gov
 Modification of master
 .mil
database triggers replication.
 Clients can query(master
STEP 1
server,any of the copies at STEP 6
YOU TYPE
slave servers). IN IDS
STEP 4
CISCO.CO REPLY: STEP 5
M IN TLDS BASED ON THE
HERE IS HERE IS THE IP
YOUR Second Level Domain INFORMATION IN ITS
THE IP ADDRESS OF
BROWSER DATABASE KNOWS THAT
2.3.4 LOOSE COHERENCY ADDRES CISCO.COM(TLDS TO Server
SECOND-LEVEL DOMAIN
S OF IDS)
SERVER HAS THE ANSWER
CISCO.C
OM

 The database is always

internally consistent.
 Cached data expires
according to timeout set User
by zone administrator.
5. DOMAIN NAME SERVICES with that particular domain, or pointers to the
information.
DNS is a hierarchical, distributed database that
stores information for hosts attached to the 5.1.1 TOP LEVEL DOMAIN
Internet to find each other. Without a naming Three types of top-level domains:-
service, such as DNS,  Organizational:3-character code
mapping information from host name to IP indicates the function of the
address would be an impossible task. DNS also organization.
contains information related to email routing Examples:gov,mil,edu,org,com,net.
and data for other InternetApplications.The  Geographical :2-character country or
following components make up the Domain
region code.
Name Service: Name Space;Name Servers;
Examples:us,va,jp,de
Resolvers. The Name Space describes the
position of the remote host in the hierarchy by  addr.arpa) used IP address-to-name
means of a domain name, the Name Servers mapping.
contain information on how to navigate the  There are more than 200 top-level
Name Space and the Resolvers query the Name domains.
Servers for the location of the remote host. The
Resolver is the client running on the local
machine that is given the URL (unified resource 5.1.2 ORGANIZATIONAL TOP-LEVEL
locator) of the remote machine to map to an IP DOMAINS
Address.

5.1 NAME SPACE AND DOMAIN

Table 1: Top level domains
The Name Space is the structure of the DNS
database. It is organised in an inverted tree com Commercial organizations
structure with the root node at the top . . Each edu Educational institutions
node must have a label and that label must be
unique within its sibling group or level. Labels gov Government institutions
can be reused at differing levels on the tree. The
int International organizations
root node is represented by the ―null‖ symbol. A
―.‖ Is used to represent the root node for mil U.S military institutions
convenience.A label represents a Domain,
net Networking organizations
which is a sub-tree of the domain name space
fromthat point downwards. A nodes domain org Non-profit organizations
name identifies its position in the name
space.The node is associated with a Resource
Record (RR) containing all the dataassociated
5.2 NAME SERVER AND RESOLVERS
  Name servers store the information
about the name space
 in units called zones (discussed above),
represented by a resource record (RR).
The RR is stored in the name server at
the zones delegation point e.g. for co.uk
zone the RR would be stored at
nameServer1.co.uk. Resolvers query
name servers about the information they
contain in their RR to locate a remote
host.
5.3 SECURITY ISSUES
The DNS server is prone to the same threats
from malicious attack and poor configuration as
any server or host attached to the Internet. Older
versions of Operating Systems, not staying
current with patches, poor server set-up and
poor infrastructure configuration all play a part
in leaving your DNS directory open to improper
updates, slow responses, bad data, denial of
service and other problems. This section will
concentrate on the specific security issues
relating to DNS, which may be more general
threats taken from the DNS viewpoint.
5.3 SOLUTION TO ISSUES
DNSSEC solves the current top issues with the
domain name system. It is the way forward.
Without it companies, online shops, banks,
governments and home users will
continue be susceptible to threats the original
DNS was never designed to cope with.Without a
method of authenticating the public information
held in name serves attackers will have a very
easy and effective weapon in their arsenal. The
future is DNSSEC.
7. ADVANTAGES
 No need to memorise numbers.
 Domain names makes / gives a kind of
sense to hyper links when a name is
given instead of a string of numbers .
 Easy for categorising,archiving and
inturn helping ( to an extent ) search
engines.
8. DISADVANTAGES
 Heirarchial and centralised which breaks
down the main objective of Internet which
is designed to be a decentralised system .
 w:ICANN controls the DNS root registry
which is a non profit private organisation
with ties to one specific nation and
challenges the concept of "Net Neutrality" !
 Breakdown of DNS would crash the world
wide web though there are many root
servers and backup servers targetting DNS
servers at particular key locations would do
lot of harm
 Spoofing DNS would lead to lot of
crucial/private data ending up in wrong
hands.
7. FUTURE SCOPE OF DNS
To presume to be able to predict the future with
great accuracy, particularly in a realm so rapidly
changing as technology, especially when it is so
deeply intertwined with many other dynamic
factors from across the modern world structure, 9. REFERRENCES
may seem a bit presumptuous. We must
recognize the limitations of trying to predict the [1] DNS
future in a realm that changes so rapidly, and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_Name_Sy
with so many technological, political, and stem
economic influences. Nevertheless, based on an
objective assessment of these trends and using a [2] Working principle of DNS
reasonable extrapolation to guide our analysis, http://enggedu.com/tamilnadu/university_questi
we offer forecasts for the answers the DNS and ons/question_answer/be_mj_2007/7th_sem/cse/
ICANN may present for the challenges facing it
cs1401/part_b/11_a_1.html
in the decade of the 2010s.
[3]Importance of DNS
8. CONCLUSION http://dyn.com/blog/dns-why-its-important-
how-it-works/
For the DNS to continue to provide its vital
services to future Internet users, these [4] Advantages and disadvantages of DNS
challenges must be effectively addressed by the
international community of users. The https://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/User:Pavithrans/
perspective of each stakeholder group—users, Advantages_and_disadvantages_of_DNS
domain owners, webmasters, governments, and
others—must be considered in the decisions
about the design and administration of the DNS.
Ongoing security challenges must also be faced,
and creative solutions to new security threats
must be established for the continued benefit of
all Internet users.The dynamic nature of the
Internet ecology, technology, culture, and law
warrant the continued study of DNS history in
order to determine its future andthe future of
potential successors. We hope to have provided
some insight as to the status of the DNS, how it
came to be, and some thoughts on how it may
change in the future; we hope we have provided
a starting point for future research. Ultimately,
these important decisions will require
compromises and sacrifices so that we can all
benefit from continued expansion of the Internet
and its functionality.