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We are using Internet everyday, but have you ever wondered how the Internet really works and what is the behind the scene of it. Well let’s explore about it. First we will start with What is Internet?
What is Internet?
In simple term we can say that the Internet is way to connect to computer to each other, just like connecting two cities through roads. As we have network on roads which connects multiple cities to each other. Similarly we have network of computer which are connected to each other through Internet all over the world. It also referred as the network on networks. Thus, we can say that using Internet we can connect any computer that is available over the Internet.
How it works?
But I this network of millions or billions of computer how do we know which computer are we connected to or how to connect to a specific computer that we want?, The answer is IP address (IP - Internet Protocol). IP address in unique to each computer it’s just like our home address. Suppose, If you want go to your friends house you need address of his home, in the same way computer need IP address of another computer to connect to it.
IP address is series of number connected with dot something like 216.58.194.174, again can you see problem here? Are we able remember these billion’s of number to reach to to required computer, offcourse not! So what's the solution? The simple solution is to give them a humans readable name like google.com this is called as DNS name (DNS stands for Domain Name System)
DNS is a system that translate hostname (google.com) into a IP address (216.58.194.174). Imagine this in this way, we call our friend using his mobile number, but can we remember all the contacts that we require, no right so we save them in our phone contact list using the name that we remember. In similar way DNS store the IP address of all the computer.
When type google.com in your browser and press enter the request goes to the nearest root DNS server. Root DNS server check the domain name based on .com, .in, .uk, .ai and redirects request to respective ANS server (Authoritive Name Server) (DNS server of domain name provider e.g. godaddy.com) then ANS check for the IP of the domain name in his database this process is known as DNS resolution. Once we get our requested IP our request is redirected towards the requested computer (also referred as server), in our case google.com, then google’s server respond us back with webpage of google.com which will shown on the browser. And that's how the Internet work!
Summary
The Internet connects computers worldwide, similar to a network of roads linking cities. Each computer has a unique IP address, like a home address, which allows them to connect. Since memorizing these numerical IP addresses is impractical, the Domain Name System (DNS) translates human-readable domain names like google.com into IP addresses. When you enter a domain in your bjrowser, DNS resolution directs your request to the appropriate server, which then responds by delivering the web page to your browser. This entire process illustrates how the Internet functions.