> DNS broke my site for three hours. But now I actually understand it<p>I have been broken for three decades and I still don't understand DNS. It is a simple protocol but people use it in complicated manners.
Only oddity was the reference to the "router cache". I agree if your browser tried to lookup example.com the local cache would be used, but then it would be the system's configured DNS server - and that would most likely be an ISP, rather than your local router.<p>(Assuming a typical home connection, your router is _probably_ not a DNS server with local cache, it probably is a DHCP server which will hand out the upstream/ISPs' nameservers.)
The system's configured DNS <i>resolver</i> is usually your router.
I think this is probably quite dependent on what’s normal for ISPs in the region. In the UK for example, every ISP router I’ve had runs a DNS server and it’s that which is given out via DHCP. It then forwards onto the ISPs DNS platform.
This might be the easiest-to-understand breakdown of DNS that I've seen to date. I've owned a domain since the late 90s, but never really understood everything the acronyms or concepts involved in making it work. Well done!
Well written! Is so easy to understand and read that I can easily share it even with non-tech people c:
Well written article!