Do You Know Name Server?

If you manage your own website, you may have run across the term “nameserver”. However, you might not have any real understanding of what one is or how it works. As it turns out, knowing a little about this concept can come in handy for managing your site.

When a user enters a URL in their browser, like “www.netwyman.com, there needs to be some way to connect that URL with the underlying web server that powers the website at that domain name.

A name server is a specialized server on the Internet that handles queries or questions from your local computer, about the location of a domain name’s various services.

A great simple way to think about name servers is using a phone book analogy. If you were trying to call InMotion Hosting you might have remembered our phone number, but more than likely you’d want to look it up before just guessing at numbers.

Introduction to Nameservers

Nameservers are put to work every time someone accesses a website, but many people have very little understanding of what they actually are. To understand this concept, you’ll need to consider what happens when a website is visited.

What nameservers do is use this information to translate domain names into numerical IP addresses – the language our computers understand. This process works so quickly that it’s almost never noticeable. You simply type in a URL, the nameserver lets your browser know where that website is located, and the desired page loads.

Without this system, we’d have to type lengthy IP addresses into our browsers every time we wanted to open a website. Therefore, the service provided by nameservers is invaluable. The term ‘nameserver’ can be used to describe any server that has DNS software installed. However, it usually refers to a server owned by a web host, which is used to manage customer domain names.

Nameservers look like any other domain name. When you look at a website’s nameservers, you’ll typically see a minimum of two nameservers (though you can use more). Here’s an example of what they look like:

• ns-380.awsdns-47.com

• Ns-1076.awsdns-06.org

Only instead of serving up a website, those nameservers help direct traffic.

But behind-the-scenes, the high-level process actually goes something like this:

• You type “kinsta.com” into the address bar and hit enter
  

• Your browser sends a request to that domain’s nameservers
  

• The nameservers respond back with the IP address of the website’s server
  

• Your browser requests the website content from that IP address
  

• Your browser retrieves the content and renders it in your browserv

Nameservers  vs  DNS Records

In the example above, we left out one point for simplicity:

DNS records.

DNS records are what contain the actual information that other browsers or services need to interact with, like your server’s IP address.

Nameservers, on the other hand, help store and organize those individual DNS records.

Earlier, we referred to DNS as the phone book of the Internet. But a more specific analogy would be that:

Nameservers are the physical phone book itself.

DNS records are the individual entries in the phone book.

If you wanted to find someone’s phone number (back when phone books existed!), you’d first grab the phone book itself. Then, you’d open the phone book and go through the entries to find the specific information that you need.