Internet Root Nameserver

An Internet Root Nameserver (also known as a Root Name Server) is a domain name service server which redirects requests for Top Level Domains to that specific domain, be it .com, .org, .net, .co, .tv or any other domain.

In a typical domain service request, where a computer wants to resolve a domain name to an IP address, it works from right to left. Let's suppose we want to resolve the domain in www.somewhere.com. First, there is an implied dot just to the right of the "last" word, .com. This implied dot is never needed, because the domain name service automatically fills this in for the address. So, our address is really www.somewhere.com.[blank space]. The blank space is the root domain and contained in the root domain (although a private company may have their own private root servers) are the well-known top level domain names, like: .com, .org, or .net. Other top level domain names have been added in recent years, but these three are the most common.

So, we are resolving a domain, www.somewhere.com.[blank space]. We are already in the root ([blank space]) because we are on the Internet. Working from right to left, the next thing we come to is the .com. The Internet knows how to direct to the .com servers from the information it has stored. The .com servers contain information about the "somewhere" domain and lastly, the "somewhere" servers answer queries for the subordinate addresses such as "www" translating the information into an IP Address.

There are thirteen Internet Root Nameservers, six of which are located in the USA and others which are physically anywhere in the globe. Seven of these are distributed using Anycast software. DNS lookups to the root nameservers are relatively rare, since the information is all cached. The Internet Root Nameservers have names with just one letter, from "a" to "m" and all have an IPV4 address. Nine of these servers have an IPV6 address too.