10 Central DNS servers? Where? Is this correct?

[user-7256]

Hi,

I heard somewhere that there were like 10 central DNS servers or LOCATIONS that basically run the Internet, and without those the Internet would basically be shut down.

Would this affect the US or other governments if these DNS stations shut down? Some info on their location & number would be greatly appreciated...

Thanks,
-Matt

(:lol: After reading this I think you might get the impression that I want to shut down the Internet. I don't. This is for a blog post I'm writing.)

 

[ZuraX]

Since most are in the USA I doubt any other country can use it to hurt the US.

 

[faisj]

Hi,

I heard somewhere that there were like 10 central DNS servers or LOCATIONS that basically run the Internet, and without those the Internet would basically be shut down.

Would this affect the US or other governments if these DNS stations shut down? Some info on their location & number would be greatly appreciated...

Thanks,
-Matt

(:lol: After reading this I think you might get the impression that I want to shut down the Internet. I don't. This is for a blog post I'm writing.)

Almost correct:

A root nameserver is a DNS server that answers requests for the root namespace domain, and redirects requests for a particular top-level domain to that TLD's nameservers.

There are currently 13 root name servers, with names in the form letter.root-servers.net where letter ranges from A to M:


A VeriSign Dulles, Virginia, USA
B ISI Marina Del Rey, California, USA
C Cogent distributed using anycast
D University of Maryland College Park, Maryland, USA
E NASA Mountain View, California, USA
F ISC distributed using anycast
G U.S. DoD NIC Vienna, Virginia, USA
H U.S. Army Research Lab Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland, USA
I utonomica distributed using anycast
J VeriSign distributed using anycast
K RIPE NCC distributed using anycast
L ICANN Los Angeles, California, USA
M WIDE Project Tokyo, Japan

All is controlled by the so called: ICANN DNS Root Server System Advisory Committee


please update rep.. if this is what you needed LOL = )



Update
PS.

Some Common Misconceptions

No Internet traffic passes through the root name servers at all. They have nothing to do with routing, note the difference in spelling. Name servers just answer queries from other parts of the DNS.

The root name servers are not queried every time you browse the web or send mail. Information is cached in the DNS. Your computer will query a caching DNS server to resolve domain names. A well behaved DNS server needs to query the root name servers only once every 48 hours for each particular TLD.

In the meantime it can resolve names for that TLD without involvement of the root name servers. Because of this caching almost all DNS queries are answered without involvement of the root name servers.

 

[Robson]

Interesting, never knew that!