What is DNS? (click here to skip the sappy explanations)
DNS stands for Domain Name System. It is the mechanism responsible for the translation of "English" server addresses to IP addresses on the Internet. DNS can be likened to making a telephone call via the operator. You tell the operator the name of the party you wish to speak with and he or she takes care of the rest.
Why do we need it?
IP, which stands for Internet Protocol, is based on a numeric addressing scheme. It is the only addressing it really understands. To make the Internet more easily navigable, DNS was developed to translate requests made with English site names to numeric addresses that IP can use. Without DNS, you would need to type in (and know beforehand) the numeric IP addresses of each and every site you wanted to visit. That would mean typing in 135.145.11.3 rather than ladieshomejournal.com.
How does it work?
While a technical explanation of the intricacies of DNS is beyond the scope of this document, the short of it is that, essentially, your computer makes its connection to the Internet with the minimal knowledge of the IP address of one or two systems: the primary domain name server and the secondary name server. Because your computer already has the numeric IP address, it can easily contact either of these systems without knowing anything else about them. Once contact has been established with one of these servers, that server bears the responsibility of providing your computer with the numeric equivalent of each and every English site name you type into your Internet software. If the address is found, it is returned to your software and an attempt is then made to contact the site you've requested. If the address is not found, your software inform will inform you of that as well.
So, why disable is?
Actually, we're not really disabling it. Properly configured, Windows 95 and Windows 98 will automatically use the two domain name servers assigned to Dial-Up Networking by our communications servers. This is the preferred method, as it makes the configuration process transparent to the customer. It also allows the administrator to make changes, such as switching to another backbone provider, without having to have customers reconfigure their systems.
Now that we have you totally confused, we'll explain what it is, exactly, that we're disabling. In Windows 95 and Windows 98, most system settings are made through one of the many applets in the Control Panel, which is located in the My Computer folder. One of those applets is the Network applet. Changes made to the network settings in the Network applet are global. That means that they apply to not only your Cport connection, but all other connections that might be made via modem, LAN adapter, etc. More importantly, these settings are static and override the settings that our communications servers assign to your computer.
So, what's the problem?
The problem will occur when we switch to a new backbone provider. At that time, every IP address in our network will change and our domain name servers will cease to exist at their current addresses (207.173.210.1, 208.8.184.10). If these values are hard-coded into the Network area of the Control Panel, no other addresses will be used for domain name resolution and such resolution will not occur at all. Period. The result? Your connection will be useless to you and you will not be able to travel anywhere on the Internet unless you know the numeric IP address of each and every site you wish to visit. Obviously, this is not a good thing.
So, how do I fix it?
I thought you'd never ask. It's very easy:
Check out our Glossary!