Every record,
one query.

The Domain Name System is the internet's phone book. When you type github.com into a browser, a DNS resolver translates that human-readable name into one or more IP addresses your computer can actually route to. That translation is stored in DNS records — structured data published by the domain owner in authoritative nameservers around the world. Without DNS, you'd need to memorise IP addresses for every site you visit.

Different record types carry different kinds of information. A records map a name to an IPv4 address; AAAA records do the same for IPv6. MX records tell mail servers where to deliver email for a domain — each has a priority number, and lower means higher priority. NS records name the authoritative nameservers responsible for a zone; these are what DNS resolvers consult to find all other records. CNAME records are aliases — they point one name at another, useful for pointing www at a CDN or load balancer.

TXT records are a flexible catch-all for text data. They're heavily used for email security: an SPF record (v=spf1 …) lists servers authorised to send email for a domain, while DMARC (v=DMARC1 …) tells receiving mail servers what to do with messages that fail SPF or DKIM checks. TXT records are also used to prove domain ownership to services like Google Search Console and Let's Encrypt during certificate issuance.

The SOA record (Start of Authority) is the authoritative source of metadata for a DNS zone. It names the primary nameserver, an admin contact email, and timing parameters that control how secondary nameservers refresh their copy of the zone, retry on failure, and expire stale data. The serial number increments with every change — secondaries compare it to know whether they need to re-sync.