Network address server

Abstract

A network address server is configured to resolve a target network address name label with a network address, with the target address name label defining a branch of one level of a multi-level network address name space. The network address server is one of a plurality of network address servers each being uniquely associated with a respective region of the address name space level. The network address server includes an address name database, and an address name processor in communication with the address name database for providing a response to a query for the network address corresponding to the target address name label. The address name database includes a number of database records, each identifying a unique address name label and a network address uniquely associated with the address name label. The address name processor includes a correlation processor, a correlation transceiver in communication with the correlation processor, and a response processor in communication with the correlation processor and the correlation transceiver. The correlation processor is configured to determine a correlation between the target address name label and the respective unique address name region. The correlation transceiver is configured to provide the other network address servers with a respective indication of the determined correlation and for receiving a corresponding correlation indication from at least one of the other network address servers. The response processor is configured to provide a response to the query in accordance with the correlation indications.

Description

technical field [0001] The present invention relates to a system and method for facilitating inter-domain communication of a wide area network, and more particularly to a network server for associating network address names with physical network addresses. Background technique [0002] To facilitate communication between communicating devices on a network, each network device is typically assigned a unique numeric network address. A user associated with one of these network devices then need only provide the network transport layer with the designated target's numeric network address to communicate with the target. While the system works satisfactorily in small networks where users only communicate with a small number of network communication devices, the system cannot be easily migrated to large networks because it would require each network user to remember a large number of unique numerical network addresses. For this reason, the domain name sys...

AI Technical Summary

Problems solved by technology

Therefore, the number of available domain names is severely limited

Second, the DNS system is case-insensitive, so domain names that have the same spelling but differ in the case of their constituent letters will resolve to the same network address

Obviously, this requirement further limits the number of available domain names

Third, since resource records for each subdomain are stored in the zone file, the number of domain names and the speed of the resolution process are limited by the hardware of the domain name server

As a result, nameservers implemented e.g. using BIND (bind) will incorrectly interpret UTF-8 characters received from legacy browsers as two characters instead of one, leading to incorrect resolution of domain names

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