Category: Name Servers

Free vs. Premium Name Server Providers Pros and Cons

Choosing a name server provider is a foundational decision that can influence a website’s performance, security, scalability, and overall reliability. For individuals and businesses alike, the decision often begins with a choice between free and premium name server providers. Both options have their merits and limitations, and understanding the detailed differences between them is essential…

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How Name Servers and DNS Records Work Together

The operation of the Domain Name System (DNS) depends on the close relationship between name servers and DNS records. While each plays a distinct role, they function in unison to translate human-friendly domain names into the numerical IP addresses that computers use to communicate over the internet. This process is fundamental to the accessibility of…

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Authoritative-Only Servers NSD Knot and Alternatives

In the architecture of the Domain Name System, authoritative-only name servers play a distinct and crucial role. Unlike recursive resolvers, which query other servers on behalf of clients to resolve a domain name, authoritative-only servers provide definitive DNS answers for zones they manage. These servers do not perform lookups for domains outside their configuration, nor…

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Why Version Control for Name Server Configurations Matters

In the administration of DNS infrastructure, maintaining accuracy, consistency, and accountability is critical. Name server configurations dictate how domain names are resolved, how traffic is routed, how email is delivered, and how services are reached. Any error in configuration—no matter how minor—can lead to downtime, misdirected traffic, or security vulnerabilities. In complex or high-stakes environments,…

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Migrating Name Servers to a New Hosting Provider

Migrating name servers to a new hosting provider is a critical task that requires careful planning and precise execution to avoid service disruptions, data loss, or DNS resolution failures. Name servers are responsible for serving the DNS records of a domain, which determine how traffic is routed to web servers, how email is delivered, and…

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PowerDNS for Authoritative Name Servers Key Features

PowerDNS is a high-performance, versatile DNS server solution that has gained widespread adoption for its authoritative name server capabilities. Originally developed in 1999, PowerDNS has evolved into a robust and flexible DNS platform known for its modular design, database-backed architecture, and support for modern DNS standards. It is widely used by hosting providers, internet service…

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Protecting Your Name Servers from DNS Amplification Attacks

DNS amplification attacks are among the most powerful and prevalent forms of Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks, capable of overwhelming entire networks and taking down critical services with relatively minimal effort from an attacker. These attacks exploit open or improperly configured name servers to flood a target system with a massive volume of DNS…

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Reverse Name Servers Configuring PTR Records Correctly

Reverse DNS, or rDNS, is an essential part of the Domain Name System infrastructure that allows IP addresses to be resolved back to hostnames. This process is the opposite of the more common forward DNS, where domain names are translated into IP addresses. At the center of reverse DNS is the use of PTR (Pointer)…

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DNS Round Robin Balancing Load with Name Servers

DNS Round Robin is one of the simplest and most widely implemented forms of load distribution used to manage incoming traffic across multiple servers. It works by configuring name servers to return multiple IP addresses in response to DNS queries for a single domain name, with each response rotating the order of those IP addresses.…

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Conducting Name Server Security Audits A Step-by-Step Guide

Conducting a name server security audit is a critical task that ensures the integrity, confidentiality, and availability of DNS infrastructure. Since name servers form the backbone of how domain names are resolved into IP addresses, any compromise or misconfiguration can have wide-ranging impacts, from website downtime to email delivery failures and exposure to phishing or…

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