Networking Guide
Chapter 6, Configuring the Domain Name Service

DNS root servers

DNS root servers

Root servers are positioned at the top, or root, of the DNS hierarchy, and maintain data about each of the top-level zones.

Primary, secondary, and caching-only servers, when first configured, need to know the IP addresses of root servers so that they can begin to resolve client requests about other zones. A default list of root servers is provided in the file /etc/named.root. In addition, you can obtain a current list of root servers by following this procedure:

  1. Use anonymous ftp to obtain the file netinfo/root-servers.txt from rs.internic.net. Save it as /tmp/root-servers.txt.

  2. Run the following command to convert the file to the correct filename and format:

    awk -f /usr/lib/tcprt/convroot.awk < /tmp/root-servers.txt \
    > /etc/named.root