1.

INTRODUCTION
For those of you that are new to DNS, we will offer this brief introduction before getting into how it works on Windows 2000. TCP/IP has become the de facto standard network protocol, largely due to the birth and growth of the internet, however, Unix machines have been using TCP/IP and DNS for years. TCP/IP is based on numbers and humans tend to have difficulty remembering them. In an effort to solve this problem, name resolution was invented using HOSTS files which were nothing more than an ASCII text file that listed object names and IP addresses and provided mapping between them. Every network resource had to have an updated HOSTS file that needed to be updated anytime a change, addition or deletion was made to the name resolution table. As networks soon grew larger, this became an unmanageable task. Imagine having to modify HOSTS files on 10,000 computers when a change was made. This problem was soon solved with the creation of the Domain Name Service (DNS). DNS solves this problem by creating a centralized database of host name to IP address mappings

2. What is DNA?
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DNS is a service that maps a local name to an IP address and conversely an address to a name. DDNS provides client machines with a static DNS name even if their IP address is dynamically assigned. Dynamic DNS circumvents the need for static IP addresses.
2.1.DNS STRUCTUREDNS works by dividing the internetwork into a set of domains or

networks that can be further subdivided into subdomains

2.2.DNS IN INTERNET In internet the domain name space is divided into three different

sections.

3. Who should use DDNS?

If you or your company uses a dynamic IP Address, which you need to connect to remotely, DDNS is PERFECT for you. You've probably had to call in to someone at your home office to find out what the new IP Address, then change your network configurations. With DDNS, you only have to remember a simple hostname. DDNS generally used in client server model. When the load on a single server gets to be too high, it is better to distribute it to a group of servers using DDNS. The various components of such a system are (i) DDNS (ii) Dispatcher RMI object (resides in the DDNS) (iii) Load Handler RMI object (resides at each of the servers) 3.1.DISTRIBUTED SYSTEM OF VIEW The following happens, when a client wants to send a request to a server 1. The client sends a DNS request to the DDNS 2. DDNS communicates with the available servers 3. The IP address of the least loaded server is sent to the client 4. The client sends request to that server

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4.OBJECT-ORIENTED VIEW OF THE SYSTEM

The sequence of execution is as follows 1.DDNS requests the IP of least loaded server to the Dispatcher 2.The dispatcher sends a request to the servers for the number of requests active at that time. 3.The loadHandler has an RMI component that stores the number of active connections at that time.The number of connections is sent to the dispatcher.

Fig.1 Almost all IP addresses are dynamically assigned.. Simply put there's only so many numbers out there, at least as far as the computer is concerned. (Basically, each of the four parts in the address can only be between 0 and 255.) Some really old design decisions limit the theoretical number of IP addresses even more, and until IPv6 hits the mainstream the current shortage of IP addresses will only worsen.

What does this mean, and how does it impact me? Not everyone can have their own IP address. Some Internet Service Providers might let you have a dedicated IP, but they'll probably charge you extra for it. An average cost for a static IP address is +$99.00 a month. Having a Dynamically assigned IP addresses is alot like having to change your phone number once a day, if other people need to connect to your computer they would have no way of knowing your current number. The need for a static IP address comes from those users who want to run server software such as Web Servers, FTP Servers, Game Servers, Email Servers or run business related services such as VPN 's , Remote Access Software. There are many other needs for Static IP addresses as well, far to many to list here. Dynamic DNS comes into play when a internet user either cannot afford a static IP address, or acquire a static IP address from there ISP. Working much like an old style 5

phone operator. Dynamic DNS enables a user to update a DNS server automatically each time there IP changes. So anyone who wants to connect to the users computer can always reach his server by entering the users domain name. The whole process works despite the changing IP addresses. If you live in a relatively large town there are likely millions spent each year by local businesses that require static IP addressing. Most do not know about Dynamic DNS. Many would be happy to know that there is a fully qualified alternative to the thousands of dollars they spend each year for static or persistent IP addresses. With our software you can run a Dynamic DNS service. You set the prices. You choose the market.

5. DNS Overview/Review

For those of you that are new to DNS, we will offer this brief introduction before getting into how it works on Windows 2000. TCP/IP has become the de facto standard network protocol, largely due to the birth and growth of the internet, however, Unix machines have been using TCP/IP and DNS for years. TCP/IP is based on numbers and humans tend to have difficulty remembering them. In an effort to solve this problem, name resolution was invented using HOSTS files which were nothing more than an ASCII text file that listed object names and IP addresses and provided mapping between them. Every network resource had to have an updated HOSTS file that needed to be updated anytime a change, addition or deletion was made to the name resolution table. As networks soon grew larger, this became an unmanageable task. Imagine having to modify HOSTS files on 10,000 computers when a change was made. This problem was 6

soon solved with the creation of the Domain Name Service(DNS). DNS solves this problem by creating a centralized database of host name to IP address mappings. As an example of what DNS does, check out the following links(they will open in a new window): http://www.mcmcse.com/ and 63.74.121.48. They are the same website aren't they? A DNS record has been entered into a DNS database that resolves our IP address to our domain name. Without DNS you would have to remember the IP addresses of network resources. There is a hierarchy that applies to name servers. The highest level, or top level, domains are registered by Internic. Top level domains are the ones that you are probably used to seeing on the internet and are listed in the table below: Name Com Edu Gov Mil Net Num Org Arpa xx Type Commercial organization Educational institutions Government organization(except for military) Military organizations Networks Phone numbers Non-profit organizations Reverse DNS(used for reverse lookup) Two letter country codes.

Underneath this umbrella are subdomains that use different DNS servers. Let's look at an example: When you come to visit our site, you enter www.mcmcse.com as the address. First your computer contacts your DNS server which may be located at your ISP if you are at home or your company's corporate DNS servers if you are at work. These DNS servers probably will not have an entry for our web server and will forward the request to the Internic to resolve the top level domain mcmcse.com. While the internic is authoritative for mcmcse.com, it is not for the second level domain that represents our web server as signified by the www that precedes it. So when you enter a request for our web server, the Internic's DNS servers will point to the DNS server of our webhosting company. Our webhosting company's DNS server will point you to the correct server that our site is hosted on by using its local DNS database. Our website is then served in your browsers. Most medium to large companies also have their own internal DNS servers that provide name resolution on their internal networks or intranet. Now looking closer at internal networks, larger ones are typically divided into different DNS zones. There are several different ways that this can be organized in regards to DNS configuration. When designing any name resolution service it is important to take 7

into account what would happen if a DNS server were to fail. What if your company has an extensive intranet that is vital to the operation of the company and only 1 DNS server? If that server fails, the users will not be able to access any internal resources unless they know the IP address of the resource that they are trying to access(and they won't know). This is why fault tolerance is important in designing your namespace. Have you ever set up your home computer to access your ISP? Have you ever noticed that when configuring your IP settings you are(or should be) given 2 DNS server IP addresses to enter? This provides backup in case of a failure. Of the 2 DNS servers that you enter, 1 of them is primary and 1 is secondary. The secondary server is only contacted if there is a problem with the primary server. Let's complicate this even more by looking at an example that will illustrate the complexity of designing a enterprise wide DNS namespace. Let's say that the mcmcse.com namespace is divided into 3 zones which are sales, mktg and tech. When setting this up, we have a lot of choices ahead of us. Many of these decisions will depend on the size of the network and amount of network traffic. In our example, we could have 1 DNS server that provides the name resolution for all 3 zones and all of the devices within them. This would not be a good idea as it is not fault tolerant. We could have a primary and secondary nameserver for all zones and resources within them. This may very well work depending on the properties of the network. We could also create 3 DNS servers as follows:

DNS1.mcmcse.com - Primary for the sales zone and secondary for the mktg zone. DNS2.mcmcse.com - Primary for the mktg zone and secondary for the tech zone. DNS3.mcmcse.com - Primary for the tech zone and secondary for the sales zone. In this example, 3 DNS servers are used and each zone has a primary and secondary DNS server.

6. Key Features of DDNS

Can map your domain name to servers even without a static IP address. 1/3 cost of Fixed IP. Enable users to operate Internet services such as web, email or chat server in home environment. No extra equipment required. 6.1.DNS and Active Directory In the example above at the end of the DNS overview, we were discussing Primary and Secondary DNS servers. While both of these types of servers are still supported as well as caching servers, Windows 2000 presents a new kind of DNS server known as "integrated". This refers to a DNS server that is being used in conjunction with Active Directory. Both DNS and Active Directory(AD) are distributed databases that work together. In fact, if you do are not using DNS, you can't use AD. Windows 2000 DNS provides the Active Directory Installation wizard which installs and configures AD and will also automatically set up your DNS server. Now remember that Active Directory treats everything on a network as an object and this is no different for DNS. When AD is used, 9

each DNS zone becomes an Active Directory container called "DnsZone". The DnsZone object will contain DnsNode leaf objects for all unique resource names within that particular zone. Each of these leaf objects represents an entry for a network resource that is registered in both the AD and DNS databases.

6.2.Keep your computer available. Always, anywhere.

That IP Dynamic DNS gives your computer a friendly name on the Internet. You can register yourname.com and have it point straight to your machine, or you can use a name like yourname.thatip.com. Your unique hostname will point to your system whenever it is connected to the Internet, no matter how often your dynamic IP address changes.

6.3.Static Hostnames for Dynamic IPs

If you receive Internet service from a dialup, cable, or DSL provider, it is likely that your IP address will change fairly frequently. This can be a problem if you would like other people to be able to reach your computer. For example, if you run a web server on your own computer you would have to tell people your IP address every time it changes so they could type it into their web browser. With a static hostname from ThatIP you can instead give people an easy-to-remember name that always stays updated.

7. Replication

So what if changes are made to a DNS database? This is why the concept of zone transfer or replication is important. DNS servers can be configured to replicate changes to secondary name servers which is a process referred to as zone transfer. In Windows 2000, AD will handle the replication of the DNS database between servers using multi-master replication. This means that changes to the DNS database can be replicated to any DNS server that participates in AD and the information will be sent to all domain controllers. The copy of the zone file that the secondary DNS server receives is read-only. In previous implementations, the primary DNS server had to handle communication with all secondary servers that required updates. Zone transfer can be either full transfer in which the entire zone file is transferred or incremental in which it only transmits the changes that have occurred.

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8. Resource Records

DNS uses database entries called Resource Records to categorize various network resources. Below is a list of these resources and their function. Although it is not a complete list, it includes the more common/important records. For a complete list go to here. Keep in mind that additional resource records can be created using the DNS management snap-in tool . Record A AAAA SOA NS Description Address record. This entry maps host names to IP addresses. Address record. Same as above, but for use with IPv6. Defines the primary name server and its parameters for a given zone and is the first database record seen in any zone. Name Server. Defines name servers on the network.

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MX TXT

Mail Exchange. Defines a mail server. Text record which contains descriptive text about a given resource such as location, owner, etc.

The information required to resolve symbolic names is maintained by the name server in a set of resource records, which are entries in a database. The RR will have a TTL value, which can be used to delete the RR records from the cache. Setting the TTL value of all RR records from DDNS to a very small value will allow you to make the naming system dynamic.

8.1.RESOLVING SYMBOLIC NAMES The name, server operation, falls into two categories: recursive and nonrecursive.

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DNS is usually static which means the IP address for a given host name will be the same always, unless it is actually changed. A DDNS will, however, return different IPs for the same host name. Each IP denotes a separate server in the server group. The IP return for a host name is decided by the distributed server load balancing algorithm, which is present in the Dispatcher

9. DISTRIBUTED SERVER LOAD BALANCING ALGORITHM (DSLB)

The algorithm is called distributed because it is entirely based on LoadHandler RMI components, which are distributed on each of the servers in the server group The Dispatcher RMI component at the Dispatcher will access the LoadHandler RMI component through RMI. The LoadHandler RMI component can be functionally divided into two types:

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(I) Application specific: This means that the entire load balancing is done for a single application such as a web server. The LoadHandler has a counter that specifies the number of requests being handled by the web server. (2) General: This means that the load balancing is not specific to any application. The load Handler considers all requests to the server.

10. HANDLING SERVER FAILURES

The dispatcher RMI components in the DDNS will try to access load handler components to obtain the load .If the server fails the load handler components will not be accessible and so the dispatcher will mark the server as failed. The advantage of this approach is that new servers can be added to the server group at any time without a need to restart the entire system.

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11. CONCLUSION
This paper is successfully demonstrated on Dynamic domain name space. For those of you that are new to DNS, we will offer this brief introduction before getting into how it works on Windows 2000. TCP/IP has become the de facto standard network protocol, largely due to the birth and growth of the internet, however, Unix machines have been using TCP/IP and DNS for years.

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12. REFERENCES
www.1000projects.com www.fullinterview.com www.chetanasprojects.com www.creativeworld9.blogspot.com

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