Now, it is possible for yet another redirect to occur – in fact, redirects can be chained together, up to an arbitrary limit – but in most cases only a single redirect happens before you get the content you want. It then establishes a new TCP/IP connection, speaks HTTP again, and requests the same content. Your browser dutifully follows this redirection, and must again employ the DNS to resolve the new URL to the new IP address. But in the case of a web redirect, rather than responding with a web page, or a video, or an image, or whatever it was your browser asked for, the web server responds with a 301 or 302 Redirect command, and includes a new URL where you can retrieve the requested content. On the Internet, this can happen between web servers, when one web server forwards you on to another web server.ĭNS gets you to the IP address of the first web server, and after your browser establishes a TCP/IP connection, it speaks HTTP and requests some content – typically a web page. It ends up not mattering at all, since you’re still talking to the person you wanted to call. When you dial your friend by tapping his name in your address book, you don’t know that they may have call forwarding enabled, and could be answering your call on a second phone with a different number than the one you dialed. On the Internet, the Domain Name Service, or the DNS, acts like an address book: it maps easily – remembered names like to not-so-easily remembered IP addresses. That’s why your phone has a contact list or address book. But remembering your favorite websites’ IP addresses would be as impossible as recalling all of your friends’ and family members’ phone numbers, and dialing them from memory. But before that conversation happens, you must first connect to the web server over an underlying set of protocols which power the entire Internet, called TCP/IP.Īll web servers are identified by an IP address, such as 10.1.100.2 or 192.168.100.5. This specifies the language of the conversation that will happen between your browser and the web server. That indicates that you wish to connect to a web server, one that speaks the Hypertext Transfer Protocol, or HTTP. Rather, modern web browsers simply make assumptions about user behavior and add on the missing bits of information, like the and the trailing /. But what goes on under the hood has not changed at all. Nowadays, the modern web browser requires only a minimal URL to take you to your desired destination, like simply typing “”. If you did anything less, they’d refuse to cooperate.
#Thedailybeast missing dnc server software#
Once upon a time, web browsers were persnickety pieces of software that demanded you input an exact URL, including the protocol field, like this. EasyRedir and NS1 are working together on seamless URL redirects.
The following is a guest blog post from Nate Lindstrom of the leading DNS and traffic management platform NS1.