5. DNS Servers and Clients

This section defines the terms used for the systems that act as DNS clients, DNS servers, or both.

Resolver: A program "that extract[s] information from name servers in response to client requests." (Quoted from [RFC1034], Section 2.4) "The resolver is located on the same machine as the program that requests the resolver's services, but it may need to consult name servers on other hosts." (Quoted from [RFC1034], Section 5.1) A resolver performs queries for a name, type, and class, and receives answers. The logical function is called "resolution". In practice, the term is usually referring to some specific type of resolver (some of which are defined below), and understanding the use of the term depends on understanding the context.

Stub resolver: A resolver that cannot perform all resolution itself. Stub resolvers generally depend on a recursive resolver to undertake the actual resolution function. Stub resolvers are discussed but never fully defined in Section 5.3.1 of [RFC1034]. They are fully defined in Section 6.1.3.1 of [RFC1123].

Iterative mode: A resolution mode of a server that receives DNS queries and responds with a referral to another server. Section 2.3 of [RFC1034] describes this as "The server refers the client to another server and lets the client pursue the query". A resolver that works in iterative mode is sometimes called an "iterative resolver".

Recursive mode: A resolution mode of a server that receives DNS queries and either responds to those queries from a local cache or sends queries to other servers in order to get the final answers to the original queries. Section 2.3 of [RFC1034] describes this as "The first server pursues the query for the client at another server". A server operating in recursive mode may be thought of as having a name server side (which is what answers the query) and a resolver side (which performs the resolution function). Systems operating in this mode are commonly called "recursive servers". Sometimes they are called "recursive resolvers". While strictly the difference between these is that one of them sends queries to another recursive server and the other does not, in practice it is not possible to know in advance whether the server that one is querying will also perform recursion; both terms can be observed in use interchangeably.

Full resolver: This term is used in [RFC1035], but it is not defined there. RFC 1123 defines a "full-service resolver" that may or may not be what was intended by "full resolver" in [RFC1035]. This term is not properly defined in any RFC.

Full-service resolver: Section 6.1.3.1 of [RFC1123] defines this term to mean a resolver that acts in recursive mode with a cache (and meets other requirements).

Priming: The mechanism used by a resolver to determine where to send queries before there is anything in the resolver's cache. Priming is most often done from a configuration setting that contains a list of authoritative servers for the root zone.

Negative caching: "The storage of knowledge that something does not exist, cannot give an answer, or does not give an answer." (Quoted from [RFC2308], Section 1)

Authoritative server: "A server that knows the content of a DNS zone from local knowledge, and thus can answer queries about that zone without needing to query other servers." (Quoted from [RFC2182], Section 2.) It is a system that responds to DNS queries with information about zones for which it has been configured to answer with the AA flag in the response header set to 1. It is a server that has authority over one or more DNS zones. Note that it is possible for an authoritative server to respond to a query without the parent zone delegating authority to that server. Authoritative servers also provide "referrals", usually to child zones delegated from them; these referrals have the AA bit set to 0 and come with referral data in the Authority and (if needed) the Additional sections.

Authoritative-only server: A name server that only serves authoritative data and ignores requests for recursion. It will "not normally generate any queries of its own. Instead, it answers non-recursive queries from iterative resolvers looking for information in zones it serves." (Quoted from [RFC4697], Section 2.4)

Zone transfer: The act of a client requesting a copy of a zone and an authoritative server sending the needed information. (See Section 6 for a description of zones.) There are two common standard ways to do zone transfers: the AXFR ("Authoritative Transfer") mechanism to copy the full zone (described in [RFC5936], and the IXFR ("Incremental Transfer") mechanism to copy only parts of the zone that have changed (described in [RFC1995]). Many systems use non-standard methods for zone transfer outside the DNS protocol.

Secondary server: "An authoritative server which uses zone transfer to retrieve the zone" (Quoted from [RFC1996], Section 2.1). [RFC2182] describes secondary servers in detail. Although early DNS RFCs such as [RFC1996] referred to this as a "slave", the current common usage has shifted to calling it a "secondary". Secondary servers are also discussed in [RFC1034].

Slave server: See secondary server.

Primary server: "Any authoritative server configured to be the source of zone transfer for one or more [secondary] servers" (Quoted from [RFC1996], Section 2.1) or, more specifically, "an authoritative server configured to be the source of AXFR or IXFR data for one or more [secondary] servers" (Quoted from [RFC2136]). Although early DNS RFCs such as [RFC1996] referred to this as a "master", the current common usage has shifted to "primary". Primary servers are also discussed in [RFC1034].

Master server: See primary server.

Primary master: "The primary master is named in the zone's SOA MNAME field and optionally by an NS RR". (Quoted from [RFC1996], Section 2.1). [RFC2136] defines "primary master" as "Master server at the root of the AXFR/IXFR dependency graph. The primary master is named in the zone's SOA MNAME field and optionally by an NS RR. There is by definition only one primary master server per zone." The idea of a primary master is only used by [RFC2136], and is considered archaic in other parts of the DNS.

Stealth server: This is "like a slave server except not listed in an NS RR for the zone." (Quoted from [RFC1996], Section 2.1)

Hidden master: A stealth server that is a master for zone transfers. "In this arrangement, the master name server that processes the updates is unavailable to general hosts on the Internet; it is not listed in the NS RRset." (Quoted from [RFC6781], Section 3.4.3.) An earlier RFC, [RFC4641], said that the hidden master's name appears in the SOA RRs MNAME field, although in some setups, the name does not appear at all in the public DNS. A hidden master can be either a secondary or a primary master.

Forwarding: The process of one server sending a DNS query with the RD bit set to 1 to another server to resolve that query. Forwarding is a function of a DNS resolver; it is different than simply blindly relaying queries.

[RFC5625] does not give a specific definition for forwarding, but describes in detail what features a system that forwards need to support. Systems that forward are sometimes called "DNS proxies", but that term has not yet been defined (even in [RFC5625]).

Forwarder: Section 1 of [RFC2308] describes a forwarder as "a nameserver used to resolve queries instead of directly using the authoritative nameserver chain". [RFC2308] further says "The forwarder typically either has better access to the internet, or maintains a bigger cache which may be shared amongst many resolvers." That definition appears to suggest that forwarders normally only query authoritative servers. In current use, however, forwarders often stand between stub resolvers and recursive servers. [RFC2308] is silent on whether a forwarder is iterative-only or can be a full-service resolver.

Policy-implementing resolver: A resolver acting in recursive mode that changes some of the answers that it returns based on policy criteria, such as to prevent access to malware sites or objectionable content. In general, a stub resolver has no idea whether upstream resolvers implement such policy or, if they do, the exact policy about what changes will be made. In some cases, the user of the stub resolver has selected the policy-implementing resolver with the explicit intention of using it to implement the policies. In other cases, policies are imposed without the user of the stub resolver being informed.

Open resolver: A full-service resolver that accepts and processes queries from any (or nearly any) stub resolver. This is sometimes also called a "public resolver", although the term "public resolver" is used more with open resolvers that are meant to be open, as compared to the vast majority of open resolvers that are probably misconfigured to be open.

View: A configuration for a DNS server that allows it to provide different answers depending on attributes of the query. Typically, views differ by the source IP address of a query, but can also be based on the destination IP address, the type of query (such as AXFR), whether it is recursive, and so on. Views are often used to provide more names or different addresses to queries from "inside" a protected network than to those "outside" that network. Views are not a standardized part of the DNS, but they are widely implemented in server software.

Passive DNS: A mechanism to collect large amounts of DNS data by storing DNS responses from servers. Some of these systems also collect the DNS queries associated with the responses; this can raise privacy issues. Passive DNS databases can be used to answer historical questions about DNS zones such as which records were available for them at what times in the past. Passive DNS databases allow searching of the stored records on keys other than just the name, such as "find all names which have A records of a particular value".

Anycast: "The practice of making a particular service address available in multiple, discrete, autonomous locations, such that datagrams sent are routed to one of several available locations." (Quoted from [RFC4786], Section 2)