DNS and DHCP…
If we consider Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS) to be the most common and central role in making our Microsoft-centric networks function, then the DNS and DHCP roles slide in at numbers two and three.
The purpose of DNS
Domain Name System (DNS) is similar to Active Directory in that it is a structured database that is often stored on domain controller servers and distributed automatically around your network to other domain controller/DNS servers.
Where an AD database contains information about the domain objects themselves, DNS is responsible for storing and resolving all of the names on your network.
By using DNS we can employ names instead of IP addresses. Any time that a computer makes a call to a server, service or website, it is using DNS to resolve that name to a more useful piece of information to make the network connection happen successfully.
Types of DNS records
With DNS role installed on a server, we can start using it to create DNS records, which resolve names to their corresponding IP addresses.
- Host record (A or AAAA): this is the most common type of DNS record. A host record is the one that resolves a particular name to a particular IP address. Two classes – A record (IPv4) and AAAA (or Quad A) (IPv6).
- Alias record – CNAME: this is a record that you can create that takes a name and points it at another name.
- Mail exchanger (MX) record: this is all about email services and delivery. Whatever domain name follows the @ in your email address, the DNS servers that are handling that domain name must contain an MX record telling the domain where to point its mail services.
to be continued…