DNS, short for Domain Name System, is a distributed naming service for the Internet. It translates domain names such as example.com into IP (Internet Protocol) addresses, so a computer can find a server. Each domain has records, such as A for IPv4 addresses and MX for email servers.
History of DNS
Creator: Paul Mockapetris (DNS, 1983); Berkeley students wrote the first BIND server in 1984. Year: 1983.
Before DNS, the ARPANET used one text file. The file was named HOSTS.TXT. It was the single host table. The Stanford Research Institute (SRI) kept the file. Elizabeth Feinler managed the host name registry. Computers were added by phone in business hours. By the early 1980s, that table was too slow. The network grew. In 1983, Paul Mockapetris created the Domain Name System. He worked at the University of Southern California. He did the work in its Information Sciences Institute (ISI).
The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) published the first DNS standards. It published them as RFC 882 and RFC 883 in November 1983. RFC 973 updated them in January 1986. RFC 1034 and RFC 1035 replaced the 1983 standards in November 1987. RFC means Request for Comments. The series is numbered. It records Internet standards and rules.
In 1984, four students wrote a name server. They were at the University of California, Berkeley. It was the first Unix name server. They named it the Berkeley Internet Name Domain (BIND). The Internet Systems Consortium (ISC) was founded in 1994. ISC develops and maintains BIND. BIND versions from 4.9.3 onward were developed and maintained by ISC.
Changelog and latest update
DNS gained security extensions in the 2000s. DNS Security Extensions (DNSSEC) add digital signatures to DNS answers. A resolver can then check that the answer came from the zone owner. The DNSSEC standard is RFC 4033, published in March 2005.
Encrypted transport came next. RFC 8484 defines DNS Queries over HTTPS (DoH), published in October 2018. DoH sends a DNS query inside an HTTPS request. RFC 9250 defines DNS over QUIC (DoQ). DoQ uses the QUIC transport. RFC 9250 was published in 2022. Each of these methods changes only how a query travels. The naming records stay the same.
DNS also reached devices with constrained resources. RFC 9953 defines DNS over CoAP (DoC). CoAP is short for Constrained Application Protocol. It is used by Internet of Things (IoT) devices. The IETF published RFC 9953 in March 2026 as an Internet Standards Track document. The standard is inspired by DNS over HTTPS. It aims at constrained devices that may not run full HTTPS.
Latest update: RFC 9953: DNS over CoAP (DoC), 2026-03
The IETF published RFC 9953, DNS over CoAP, in March 2026. It is an Internet Standards Track document. The RFC Editor page for RFC 9953 confirms the March 2026 date and the standards track status. DoC carries DNS queries over the Constrained Application Protocol. CoAP is a protocol for small devices. The standard is aimed at Internet of Things (IoT) devices with limited power and memory.
Usage examples
A DNS zone file is a plain text file. It lists the records for one domain. Each record has a name, a time to live in seconds, a class, a type and a value. The class IN means Internet. The examples below show a zone file, a lookup with the dig tool, and a TXT record used for email sender checks. Documentation addresses from RFC 5737 replace real addresses.
$ORIGIN example.com.
@ 3600 IN A 192.0.2.10
www 3600 IN CNAME @
@ 3600 IN MX 10 mail.example.com.This zone file maps example.com to the IPv4 address 192.0.2.10. IPv4 means Internet Protocol version 4. The www name is an alias (CNAME). It points to the same name. The MX record names the mail server that receives email for the domain. The priority 10 is used when several mail servers exist.
dig +short www.example.com A
dig +short example.com MX
dig +short example.com TXTThe dig command asks a DNS resolver for the records of one name and type. The +short option prints only the answer values. The three lines query the address, mail exchanger and text records of the domain. Run the commands on Linux or macOS with the BIND tools installed.
example.com. 3600 IN TXT \
"v=spf1 mx -all"This TXT record publishes a Sender Policy Framework (SPF) rule. SPF lists the servers allowed to send email for the domain. The mx keyword allows the hosts named in the MX records to send. The -all keyword rejects all other senders.
dig @1.1.1.1 example.com A +short
# prints the IP address of example.comThis command asks the resolver at 1.1.1.1 for the A record of example.com. The +noall and +answer options print only the answer section. The reply shows the name, the remaining time to live and the IPv4 address. The address is a placeholder in this example.
References
These sources are outside Websnoogie and were checked on 2026-10-12.
Domain Name System
Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation
Encyclopedia article on DNS. It covers the naming function, the history from HOSTS.TXT to the 1983 specification, the BIND server, the DNSSEC and encrypted transports, and the 2026 DNS over CoAP standard.
RFC 1034: Domain Names, Concepts and Facilities
IETF, RFC Editor
Specification of the DNS concepts, including the name space, zones, resource records and the resolver and name server roles. It is one of the two core documents that replaced the 1983 DNS specifications in 1987.
RFC 1035: Domain Names, Implementation
IETF, RFC Editor
Specification of the DNS message format and the resource record types, such as A, MX and CNAME, used in the zone file example. It defines the wire format that DNS clients and servers use to exchange queries and answers.
RFC 4033: DNS Security Introduction
IETF, RFC Editor
Introduction to DNS Security Extensions (DNSSEC), published in March 2005. It explains how digital signatures are added to DNS data so that a resolver can check the origin of the answer.
RFC 8484: DNS Queries over HTTPS (DoH)
IETF, RFC Editor
Standard that sends DNS queries inside HTTPS requests. It explains how DoH protects the query from observers on the network and how a client encodes the DNS message in an HTTP request and response.
RFC 9953: DNS over CoAP (DoC)
IETF, RFC Editor
Internet Standards Track document published in March 2026. It defines DNS over the Constrained Application Protocol (CoAP) for small devices in the Internet of Things, a case where full HTTPS may not fit.
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