Syllabus Detail

• Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) and Domain Name Server (DNS)      12 ATAR

Background

• For the internet or a LAN to work correctly each device must be recognised.
• The way to recognise all devices is to give them a name or a number.
• When you type in the name of a website you are actually shown the name that it is recognised by. This is the domain name that it is known as. eg google.com is a domain name. thecomputingteacher.com is another domain. There are 100,000s of these.
• names are good for humans, but computers need numbers and that is why we have IP addresses.

Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP)

• DHCP is a service on a server that gives devices a number. eg an IP address.
• It can't give the same number to different computers or there will be confusion.
• It has a range of numbers to use and when a computer is turned on and logged onto on a network, it will allocate an IP address automatically to that device.
• When the computer is turned off, the IP address becomes available to use when any computer is turned on and logged onto.

Domain Name Server (DNS)

• A domain name is used for a website.
• All websites have domain names.
• DNS works at the internet website registration level.
• When you register a website, you choose a domain name.
• DNS converts the domain into an IP address so computers can read them.
• nasa.com has the IP address of 128.154.26.11
• google has the IP address of 8.8.8.8

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