DNS (Domain Name System) in Computer Networks - Mini Project: Build & Apply

Understanding DNS (Domain Name System)

📖 Scenario: You want to understand how the Domain Name System (DNS) works by creating a simple representation of DNS records and how they map domain names to IP addresses.

🎯 Goal: Build a simple DNS record dictionary, add a query domain, find the IP address for that domain, and complete the lookup process.

📋 What You'll Learn

Create a dictionary with domain names as keys and IP addresses as values

Add a variable for the domain name to query

Write code to find the IP address for the query domain using the dictionary

Complete the lookup by storing the result in a variable

💡 Why This Matters

🌍 Real World

DNS is used every time you visit a website to translate the domain name into an IP address computers understand.

💼 Career

Understanding DNS is important for network administrators, web developers, and IT professionals who manage internet connectivity and website hosting.

1

Create DNS records dictionary

Create a dictionary called dns_records with these exact entries: 'example.com': '93.184.216.34', 'openai.com': '104.18.30.162', and 'github.com': '140.82.114.4'.

Computer Networks

# Create the dns_records dictionary with domain-IP pairs
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use curly braces {} to create a dictionary with domain names as keys and IP addresses as values.

2

Add query domain variable

Create a variable called query_domain and set it to the string 'openai.com'.

Computer Networks

dns_records = {
    'example.com': '93.184.216.34',
    'openai.com': '104.18.30.162',
    'github.com': '140.82.114.4'
}
# Create the query_domain variable with the domain to look up
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Assign the domain name you want to look up to the variable query_domain.

3

Lookup IP address for query domain

Create a variable called ip_address and set it to the value from dns_records for the key query_domain.

Computer Networks

dns_records = {
    'example.com': '93.184.216.34',
    'openai.com': '104.18.30.162',
    'github.com': '140.82.114.4'
}

query_domain = 'openai.com'
# Get the IP address for the query_domain from dns_records
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use the dictionary key access syntax dns_records[query_domain] to get the IP address.

4

Complete DNS lookup process

Create a variable called lookup_result and set it to a string that says "The IP address of {query_domain} is {ip_address}" using an f-string.

Computer Networks

dns_records = {
    'example.com': '93.184.216.34',
    'openai.com': '104.18.30.162',
    'github.com': '140.82.114.4'
}

query_domain = 'openai.com'

ip_address = dns_records[query_domain]
# Create lookup_result string using f-string
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use an f-string to combine the domain and IP address into a readable message.