What's DNS
DNS is the Internet name resolving service, officially known as the "Domain Naming Service". DNS involves clients and servers; where clients ask questions and servers provide answers. It's much like a phone book; given a (machine) name you can look up the IP address (like you would a phone number) in order to reach that machine.
DNS is also sometimes referred to as "BIND" - also known as the Berkeley Internet Name Daemon - probably the most commonly used DNS software in the world. The BIND software includes a daemon (server process) usually called "named" and a diagnostic and testing utility commonly called "nslookup" and newer versions include a utility called "dig".
DNS is the method used by Internet TCP/IP programs when they need to look up the "IP" address which corresponds to some machine (node) name. DNS also has a facility for "reverse" lookups, where client applications can look up the official node name of a machine by providing its IP address. DNS also has a special facility used by Internet mail programs to designate "proxy" systems or alternate systems for routing e-mail messages.
Important update! The BIND nameserver package was ported to MPE/iX. See our page on public domain software for the HP3000s. HP3000s as of MPE/iX 4.0 support a DNS client for looking up the IP address of hosts applications (like telnet, ftp, or dscopy) might try to connect to. NetMail/3000 and DeskLink also use the DNS client for looking up addresses, and also include a custom module which uses DNS for mail routing lookups (which the MPE DNS client doesn't support).
| Back to Config Page | Back to 3k Home Page |