Electrical computers and digital processing systems: multicomput – Computer-to-computer data addressing
Reexamination Certificate
2000-09-29
2004-07-27
Barot, Bharat (Department: 2155)
Electrical computers and digital processing systems: multicomput
Computer-to-computer data addressing
C709S203000, C709S217000, C709S226000, C707S793000, C707S793000, C707S793000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06769031
ABSTRACT:
TECHNICAL FIELD
The following disclosure relates generally to updating information, and more particularly to dynamically incorporating updates to configuration information in active use.
BACKGROUND
The Internet enables a user of a client computer system to identify and communicate with millions of other computer systems located around the world. A client computer system can identify each of these other computer systems using a unique numeric identifier for that computer called an “IP address.” When a communication is sent from a client computer system to a destination computer system, the client computer system typically specifies the IP address of the destination computer system in order to facilitate the routing of the communication to the destination computer system. For example, when a request for a World Wide Web page (“web page”) is sent from a client computer system to a web server computer system (“web server”) from which that web page can be obtained, the client computer system typically includes the IP address of the web server.
In order to make the identification of destination computer systems more mnemonic, a Domain Name System (DNS) has been developed that translates a unique textual name for a destination computer system into the IP address for that computer. The textual name is called a “domain name.” For example, the domain name for a hypothetical computer system operated by Micron Electronics, Inc. (“Micron Electronics”) may be “comp23.MicronPC.com”. Using domain names, a user attempting to communicate with this computer system could specify a destination of “comp23.MicronPC.com” rather than the particular IP address of the computer system (e.g., 198.81.209.25).
In addition to making the identification of destination computer systems more mnemonic, domain names introduce a useful layer of indirection between the name used to identify a destination computer system and the IP address of that computer system. Using this layer of indirection, the operator of a particular computer system can initially associate a particular domain name with a first computer system by specifying that the domain name corresponds to the IP address of the first computer system. At a later time (e.g., if the first computer system breaks or must be replaced), its operator can “transfer” the domain name to a second computer system by then specifying that the domain name corresponds to the IP address of the second computer system.
The domain names in DNS are structured in a hierarchical, distributed database that facilitates grouping related domain names and computers, as well as facilitating the uniqueness of different domain names. In particular, as mentioned above, a particular domain name such as “MicronPC.com” may identify a specific host computer. However, the hierarchical nature of DNS also allows a domain name such as “MicronPC.com” to represent a domain including multiple other domain names each identifying computers (also referred to as “hosts”), either in addition to or instead of identifying a specific computer.
FIG. 1A
illustrates a hypothetical portion of the DNS database
100
in which the node representing the MicronPC.com domain name
110
is the root node in an MicronPC.com domain
150
that includes 7 other nodes each representing other domain names. Each of these domain names in the MicronPC.com domain can be, but do not have to be, under the control of a single entity (e.g., Micron Electronics).
FIG. 1A
also includes a HostPro.com domain
155
that includes a single domain name.
As is illustrated, the DNS database can be represented with a tree structure, and the full domain name for a given node in the tree can be determined by concatenating the name of each node along the path from the given node to the root node
101
, with the names separated by periods. Thus, the 8 nodes in the MicronPC.com domain represent the domain names MicronPC.com
110
, foo.MicronPC.com
112
, bar.MicronPC.com
114
, comp23.MicronPC.com
116
, foo.foo.MicronPC.com
118
, bar.foo.MicronPC.com
120
, abc.comp23.MicronPC.com
122
, and cde.comp
23
.MicronPC.com
124
. Other domain names outside the MicronPC.com domain are also illustrated in
FIG. 1A
, including BCD-Corp.com
132
and HostPro.com
134
in the “.com” domain (whose boundary is not illustrated in
FIG. 1A
) and Stanford.edu
136
and Berkeley.edu
138
in the “.edu” domain (whose boundary is not illustrated in FIG.
1
A). The hierarchical nature of the domain names also assist in maintaining uniqueness of names—for example, while the domain names for nodes
112
and
118
each have the same text label of “foo,” their full domain names are distinct.
The hierarchical, distributed structure of DNS additionally assists in the mapping of the textual domain names to the appropriate IP addresses. In particular, DNS is supported by a network of domain name server computer systems (“domain name servers”) distributed throughout the Internet that maintain mappings from domain names to IP addresses. For any particular domain name, at least one domain name server is designated as being authoritative for that particular domain name and can determine one or more IP addresses to which the particular domain name should be mapped. When another computer requests the one or more IP addresses for a domain name, an authoritative domain name server for that domain name can then make the appropriate IP addresses available to the requestor. A piece of software that is commonly used to implement the DNS protocols is the Berkeley Internet Name Domain (“BIND”) software, available at the time of this writing at “http://www.isc.org/products/BIND/”. This software assists authoritative domain name servers to maintain the appropriate mapping information for domain names, and also assists other computers in identifying the domain name servers that are authoritative for a domain name when needed.
Each domain name will have one authoritative name server that is designated as the primary master name server (“primary name server”) for that domain name, and the primary name server will have control over the stored information (including the IP addresses) for that domain name. In particular, the information about the domain name will typically be stored as a local file on the primary name server computer (called a “zone data file,” as discussed below), and the primary name server will thus control any changes that are to be made to the domain name information. If there are additional non-primary name servers that are authoritative for the domain name, these name servers are referred to as “slave name servers.” When a primary name server begins to execute, it typically reads the information from each zone data file that is stored and then caches that information in its memory for quick access. Slave name servers obtain their domain name information from the appropriate primary name server (typically when they begin to execute), and can then make the information available to requestors.
Rather than being associated directly with domain names, each name server is actually associated with one or more zones of domain names, with each zone including one or more related domain names. Various information about each zone is stored in a zone data file for that zone, including information indicating the primary name server for the zone, slave name servers for the zone, domain name-to-IP address mappings for each domain name in the zone, domain name aliases that represent other domain names in the zone, and a serial number indicating a version of the zone data file. A primary or slave name server for a zone can be a host computer associated with one of the domain names in the zone, or can instead be associated with a domain name located elsewhere in the DNS database hierarchy. Each entry in the zone data file is referred to as a DNS resource record.
FIG. 1B
illustrates an example of the distinction between domains and zones. As discussed above, the MicronPC.com domain includes 8 domain names, but as is illustrated, this domain is divided up in this example into 3 different
Barot Bharat
Interland, Inc.
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