IP addresses, Domain names and DNS
Did you know that all you ever need to connect to any computer in the world via the internet is its IP address? That's right if you have the IP address of any computer you can send an HTTP-request(or an FTP request) to that computer. Whether to respond to the request or not is completely up to that computer.
An IP address is short for Internet Protocol address. There are two versions of IP addresses the 32-bit IPv4 and 128-bit IPv6. The internet currently uses the IPv4 address which is a combination of four numbers each can range from 0 to 255, for example, 139.59.79.235
However remembering these IP addresses to connect to every website is difficult. That is why 99% of websites have a Domain Name, which is normally used by you to connect to their website. These Domain Names are an alternative to IP addresses that are easy to remember.
However, you almost never type in the IP address of any website, still, you are able to connect to connect to all of them. This is because when you type the Domain Name of a website on your browser, your browser automatically gets it's IP address from a Domain Name Service.
A Domain Name is simply a name registered by any user of a computer on the internet. This name is registered by some Domain Name Registrars like BigRock, GoDaddy, NameCheap etc. These websites make sure that your IP address is attached to your Domain in all Domain Name Sevices (DNS) of the world and also that nobody else can take that name even in other registrars.
A Domain Name Service (Commonly known as DNS) is a free online service that provides IP-address corresponding to a Domain Name to your browser.
Normally your default DNS is the one provided by your ISP (Internet Service Provider), but you can change it to a faster DNS like that of google. Doing this will increase your net speed. Google's primary DNS is at 8.8.8.8 and Secondary DNS is at 8.8.4.4
So whenever you type in a Domain Name in your browser, your browser Sends it to a DNS and the DNS replies with the IP address corresponding to that Domain Name.This IP address is then used by the browser to connect to the website.
Try connecting to google.co.in using their IP address only: 216.58.220.195
Comments
Post a Comment