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The Domain Name System (DNS) is a hierarchical naming system for computers, services, or any resource participating in the Internet. It associates various information with domain names assigned to such participants. Most importantly, it translates humanly-meaningful domain names to the numerical (binary) identifiers associated with networking equipment for the purpose of locating and addressing these devices world-wide.

An often used analogy to explain the Domain Name System is that it serves as the "phone book" for the Internet by translating human-friendly computer hostnames into IP addresses. For example, www.example.com translates to 208.77.188.166.

The Domain Name System makes it possible to assign domain names to groups of Internet users in a meaningful way independent of each user's physical location. Because of this, World-Wide Web (WWW) hyperlinks and Internet contact information can remain consistent and constant even if the current Internet routing arrangements change or the participant uses a mobile device. Internet domain names are easier to remember than IP addresses such as 208.77.188.166 or 2001:db8:1f70::999:de8:7648:6e8. People take advantage of this when they recite meaningful URLs and e-mail addresses without caring how the machine will actually locate them.

The Domain Name System distributes the responsibility for assigning domain names and mapping them to Internet Protocol (IP) networks by designating authoritative name servers for each domain to keep track of their own changes, avoiding the need for a central register to be continually consulted and updated.

In general, the Domain Name System also stores other types of information, such as the list of mail servers that accept email for a given Internet domain. By providing a world-wide, distributed keyword-based redirection service, the Domain Name System is an essential component of the functionality of the Internet.

Other identifiers such as RFID tags, UPC codes, International characters in email addresses and host names, and a variety of other identifiers could all potentially utilize DNS .

The Domain Name System also defines the technical underpinnings of the functionality of this database service. For this purpose it defines the DNS protocol, a detailed specification of the data structures and communication exchanges used in DNS, as part of the Internet Protocol Suite (TCP/IP). The context of the DNS within the Internet protocols may be seen in the following diagram. The DNS protocol was developed and defined in the early 1980's and published by the Internet Engineering Task Force (cf. History).

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