Microsoft windows 2000 DNS manual Structure of DNS, Hierarchy of DNS Domain Names

superceded by RFC 1034 (Domain Names–Concepts and Facilities), and RFC 1035 (Domain Names–Implementation and Specification). RFCs that describe DNS security, implementation, and administrative issues later augmented these.

The implementation of DNS—Berkeley Internet Name Domain (BIND)—was originally developed for the 4.3 BSD UNIX operating system.

The Microsoft implementation of DNS Server became a part of the operating system in Windows NT Server 4.0. The Windows NT 4.0 DNS Server, like most DNS implementations, has its roots in RFCs 1034 and 1035.

The latest version of the Windows 2000 operating system includes a new version of DNS. The RFCs used in this version are 1034, 1035, 1886, 1996, 1995, 2136, 2308 and 2052.

The Structure of DNS

The Domain Name System is implemented as a hierarchical and distributed database containing various types of data including host names and domain names.

The names in a DNS database form a hierarchical tree structure called the domain name space.

The Hierarchy of DNS: Domain Names

Domain names consist of individual labels separated by dots. For example: mydomain.microsoft.com.

A Fully Qualified Domain Name (FQDN) uniquely identifies the host’s position within the DNS hierarchical tree by specifying a list of names separated by dots on the path from the referenced host to the root. The following figure shows an example of a DNS tree with a host called mydomain within the microsoft.com. domain. The FQDN for the host would be mydomain.microsoft.com.

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