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Question about how web domains work (lemmy.one)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Hello fellow Lemmings! I hope this is the right place to ask this. I don't understand how web domains work. Let's say I want to buy the domain "abcdefghi.net". I can go to a domain provider like haruba or godaddy and just buy it. but how can they, a private, sell me these domains? I'm not talking about the hosting, but just the domain. where do they register this domain I'm buying? isn't it possible to register it myself instead of paying these services to do it for me?

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

A small correction: the registrar directs the registry (on your behalf) to configure the registry's DNS servers to point at whichever DNS servers you specify to host the domain, which default to the registrar's DNS servers. The chain of delegation is most commonly either:

root -> registry -> registrar

root -> registry -> another DNS hosting provider (CloudFlare, AWS Route53, DNS Made Easy, etc)

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

This is really cool. So if I set my domain's DNS on the registrar's website, that DNS record is propogated to the registry? I have had this change start working in under five minutes. It's insane how fast that is given what is actually being done.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Yes, the registrar controls the NS records (and, if your zone is DNSSEC signed, DS records) for your domain in the zone the registry hosts.

[EDIT: I forgot about this part earlier.] The registrar will typically also give you the ability to "register nameservers", which means specify one or more names within the name space of your domain that you want to act as nameservers and their IP addresses. The registrar will insert A and/or AAAA records into the registry to be used as glue records.

This is probably much further down in the weeds of "how web domains work" than the OP intended.