Domain Name System (DNS)
I am a recent graduate at the beginning of my software development career. I enjoy documenting my learnings through my blogs
I registered a domain for myself for a college class. And I realised this would take a while for it to actually register to all the internet DNS servers, such as Google, etc. This led me to look into where my domain is currently available, I used dnschecker.org, but you can also use your terminal (PowerShell) to check this using the command nslookup <domain name>. From this I wanted to look more into what DNS is and how you can change your DNS server.
What is a DNS?
The Domain Name System (DNS) is essentially a phonebook for the internet, it is a database in which domain names are stored and translated into corresponding IP (Internet Protocol) addresses. For example, if you were to search google.com (domain name), a server behind the scenes maps that domain name to a designated IP address. Google has many IP addresses linked to its domain, there are various reasons for having multiple IP addresses, such as load balancing, scale of operations and for backup measures.
Most of these IP address are IPv4 addresses, but some larger domains, like Google, may also have IPv6 addresses. The DNS server is the server your computer or browser uses to look up these different domains (IP addresses), they essentially manage the mapping of domain names to their corresponding IP address(es)
How do I check my DNS?
A handy way to check your current DNS server is to use your terminal (PowerShell) and the command nslookup, this will show you the server that your computer is currently using. As default, this would usually be your router but could be your internet service provider if there is no DNS set up on your router.
Can I change my DNS?
If you wanted to change your default DNS, which I previously mentioned is either your router or internet service provider, you can do so in your network settings on your computer.
Select the Network & Internet settings
Select Advanced Network settings
Click on Wi-Fi to open the dropdown
Select edit on the More adapter options
You will be given a Wi-Fi Properties window (like below), here select IPv4After clicking IPv4 you will be brought to this window
Internet Protocol Version 4 (TCP/IPv4) Properties window will open, here you will see default options selected. Here you will need to select the second option and add in your your preferred and alternate DNS servers, I used Google’s DNS servers. Select ok to confirm your changes
When you use the nslookup command after this change you will instead see the DNS server address for Google rather that your default DNS server address.
