Application Layer Protocols
Application Layer Protocols
Application Layer Protocols
Client process:
initiates communication
Server process:
waits to be contacted
An example given below in which TCP/IP uses a DNS client and a DNS server to
map a name to an address. A user wants to use a file transfer client to access the
corresponding file transfer server running on a remote host. The user knows only
the file transfer server name, such as afilesource.com. However, the TCP/IP suite
needs the IP address of the file transfer server to make the connection. The
following six steps map the host name to an IP address:
The user passes the host name to the file transfer client.
The file transfer client passes the host name to the DNS client.
Each computer, after being booted, knows the address of one DNS server. The
DNS client sends a message to a DNS server with a query that gives the file
transfer server name using the known IP address of the DNS server.
The DNS server responds with the IP address of the desired file transfer server.
The DNS server passes the IP address to the file transfer client.
The file transfer client now uses the received IP address to access the file transfer
Server.
DNS is used for designing hierarchical name space
Example of hierarchical name space: www.staffs.ac.uk, www.fcet.staffs.ac.uk,
gawains.staffs.ac.uk, blackboard.staffs.ac.uk
In this design the names are defined in an inverted-tree structure with the root
at the top. The tree can have only 128 levels: level 0 (root) to level 127
Domain Name and Label
Domain Name
Each node in the tree has a domain name. A full domain name is a sequence of
labels separated by dots (.). The domain names are always read from the node
up to the root. The last label is the label of the root (null). This means that a
full domain name always ends in a null label, which means the last character is
a dot because the null string is nothing.
If a label is terminated by a null string, it is called a fully qualified domain
name (FQDN).
DNS Server
Stores domain name space information within its domain/subdomain.
DSN Services and Protocol