Technical
Technical FAQs
Here are some common questions that we encounter at E2BN
Q1. How can I change the DNS record(s) for my school domain - and by the way, what is DNS ?
Q2. Who is hosting our school web site ?
Q1. How can I change the DNS record(s) for my school domain - and by the way, what is DNS ?
A1. DNS stands for Domain Name System. It's like a telephone directory service. A phone book lists names and gives unique numbers that are understood by telephone exchanges and these numbers are used to make the connection.
The servers on the internet use Internet Protcol addresses to connect to each other. In order for any IT application to connect to another via the internet using a name (url), there needs to be a means of looking up the IP Address of the remote service. This is where DNS comes in. Every Internet Domain e.g e2bn.org, google.com, has a "directory" (zone file) of records - these zone files are located on DNS Servers and contain different types of records for the domain.
A Record = the IP address of a host e.g www.example.com = 194.31.25.67
MX Record = the IP address or host name of a server that will handle mail for anyuser@example.com
CNAME = an alias that points hostname"A" at hostname"B" - hostname"B" will have an A record listing the IP address.
There will also be reverse records allowing lookups of IP Address to hostname conversion.
So who can change my DNS record(s) ?
First you need to know where your DNS records are. For .co.uk , .org.uk and .sch.uk domains you can use the online whois lookup tool at http://www.nominet.org.uk . Just type the domain name e.g myschool.example.sch.uk into the search box. Don't put the www at the front. You could also use a free online tool at http://www.dnsstuff.com . This will handle all domains.
The result should return a text record indcating the domain Registar and the DNS server names. If the Registar for your school domain is E2BN and the nameservers listed are edns1.e2bn.net and edns2.e2bn.net then your Local Authority has access to the E2BN DNS system and can handle DNS changes for you.
Q2. Who is hosting our school web site ?
A2. To find out information about where a web site server is located:
If you have access to unix-type command-line tools "dig" and "whois" you can do the following..
dig www.myschool.example.sch.uk - this should produce a DNS "A" record e.g 194.33.4.56
whois 194.33.4.56
- this should yield information about who is responsible for the IP address being used by the server hosting the web site. This will give you a good indication of who is hosting your web site.
NB - Depending on where your PC is located, you might get an IP address beginning with 10.x.x.x or 192.168.x.x or between 172.16.x.x and 172.31.x.x - these are Private addresses and would indicate you site is hosted on a private network in the school, Local Authority or even E2BN itself.
Windows users:
From a MSDos prompt (Windows - Start,run - cmd):
type nslookup www.myschool.example.sch.uk or ping www.myschool.example.com - either method should yield an IP address. You now need to find where this IP address is located.
Windows doesn't have Whois tool by default. You can do an IP address lookup on-line using a search facility such as can be found at http://www.dnsstuff.com , this is a free tool but may impose limits on the number of lookups you can do over a certain period.