CIS Help Desk
Telephone: (401) 863-4357
help@brown.edu

Computing & Information Services - Administrative Offices
Office Locations
Brown University
Box 1885
Providence, RI 02912
Telephone: (401) 863-7247
Fax:(401) 863-7329
CIS_Reception@brown.edu

Domain Name System (DNS)

DNS is a UNIX service provided by CIS to the Brown campus for IP name to number (or number to name) resolution.

What is name resolution?

Hosts on the internet are known to each other only by their IP address. Internet users prefer to refer to computers by theyr domain name (ex: cnn.com, brown.edu). A mechanism named DNS, distributes the task of resolving IP addresses based on the domain name.

Implementation

Brown has two authoritative DNS nameservers, a primary and a secondary, for redundancy. The IP numbers for the two are:

Primary: 128.148.128.130
Secondary: 128.148.128.11
Tertiary: 128.148.122.20

You will need to know these IP numbers if you are setting up a network application which needs to use DNS. The reason you need to use numbers (rather than names) is because your machine has to be able to connect to the nameserver directly (without name resolution) when the connection is first made.

Requesting a DNS Entry

If you want a DNS entry added to Brown's nameservers, please send email to the Help Desk. Include the IP number and the desired IP name of the machine to be added.