User manual

Appendix E: Domain Name System
246 Cobalt Qube 3 User Manual
To add a new domain, use the Add Record... pull-down menu again. In the
Domain Name field of the type of record you select, replace the default domain
name with the new domain name that you want to create.
For further information, refer to the following:
• In the Cobalt Knowledge Base, search on “DNS”.
• http://www.dnswiz.com/dnsworks.htm (not affiliated with Cobalt Networks)
• http://www-europe.cisco.com/warp/public/787/indexDNS.html (not
affiliated with Cobalt Networks)
Brief history of the Domain Name
System (DNS)
In the 1960s, the U.S. Department of Defense Advanced Research Projects
Agency (ARPA, and later DARPA) began funding an experimental wide area
computer network called the ARPAnet. The ARPAnet used a centrally
administered file called HOSTS.TXT which held all name-to-address mapping
for each host computer connected to the ARPAnet. Since there were only a
handful of host computers at the start, HOSTS.TXT worked well.
When the ARPAnet moved to the Transmission Control Protocol/Internet
Protocol (TCP/IP) suite of protocols and become known as the Internet, the
population of the network exploded. HOSTS.TXT became plagued with
problems, namely
• traffic and load
• name collisions
• consistency
A replacement for the HOSTS.TXT file was needed. The goal was to create a
system that solved the problems inherent in a unified host table system. The new
system should allow local administration of data and also make that data globally
available.
In 1984, the architecture of a new system called Domain Name System (DNS)
was designed and is the basis of the DNS service used today on the Internet.
DNS is a distributed database that allows local administration of the segments on
the overall database. Data in each segment of the database are available across the
entire network through a client-server scheme consisting of name servers and
resolvers.