DNS is your Internet address book. You type “YouTube.com” and your device asks DNS for an IP address. The DNS server responds with the IP address, and you connect to the site. When you want to host a site, you tell the various DNS hosts “hey, I own a site. When someone types in {site address}, please send them to {IP address where your server is}.” And now visitors can reach your site, because you told the DNS services where to send your site traffic.
But notably, DNS causes all kinds of weird issues when it’s not working properly. It’s the bedrock that most modern digital infrastructure is built on, so it causes all kinds of problems whenever something isn’t working.
Maybe you type in “youtube.com”, your device asks the DNS server what IP to use, and the DNS server has an outdated IP address. So your device goes to the old IP, and fails to connect. But on your end as a user, other sites seem to be working fine? It’s just youtube that is down? What the hell?
DNS is your Internet address book. You type “YouTube.com” and your device asks DNS for an IP address. The DNS server responds with the IP address, and you connect to the site. When you want to host a site, you tell the various DNS hosts “hey, I own a site. When someone types in {site address}, please send them to {IP address where your server is}.” And now visitors can reach your site, because you told the DNS services where to send your site traffic.
But notably, DNS causes all kinds of weird issues when it’s not working properly. It’s the bedrock that most modern digital infrastructure is built on, so it causes all kinds of problems whenever something isn’t working.
Maybe you type in “youtube.com”, your device asks the DNS server what IP to use, and the DNS server has an outdated IP address. So your device goes to the old IP, and fails to connect. But on your end as a user, other sites seem to be working fine? It’s just youtube that is down? What the hell?