DNS Question


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Ok simple question but I'm slightly unsure of myself.

Which one is more reliable?

1) company A is registrar, points DNS server to company B, which is the host

2) Company A is both registrar and host, uses own DNS server

I'm thinking #2 is because it's only got one point of failure whereas #1 can fail when either company A or B's servers fail. It seems that even if I'm pointing the DNS to company B, I still need company A's servers to be running to tell people that the DNS is at company B. Is this correct?

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Ok the registrar just sends the info to the root servers ONCE, or upon change -- there is nothing that talks to the registrars during a normal lookup of a record.

The root servers for your TLD, ie .com, .net, .info etc. are the servers that know where the authoratitive servers for your.tld domain are. The registrar is only the company that sends this info to the root servers.

When someone looks up www.yourdomain.tld they never talk to the registrar for anything, the dns server you talk to asks the root servers, then the servers for .tld, then server for yourdomain

edit: btw your single point of failure logic is flawed ;) Just because you point at one company for 2 different services vs 2 companies for 1 service each does not remove the fact that there are 2 services, and either one of them could fail.. So there is still 2 points of failure!

But in your example, its not the registrar that is a failure point its the root server system.. If that fails then the whole internet would be down, so someone being able to find yourdomain.tld would be the least of the problems for the planet ;)

Your company hosting your website at www.yourdomain.tld even if they provide your dns for you, unless its like one of the smallest webhosts on the planet, like some guy out of his house or something is not going to be hosting dns on the same server that serves up your website -- so you still have 2 systems that either one could fail and your website would be offline. The webserver itself or dns, either of these systems fail and your offline.

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