Domain Name System (DNS) Queries and DNS Responses both use the same packet format. The DNS packet format, defined by Internet
Engineering Task Force (IETF) Protocol Standard 13 (RFC 1035) includes a header section, a question section, an answer section, an authority
record section and an additional
record section. In conventional DNS Queries, the header section and the question section are used; the answer section, authority
record section and additional record section are empty. In the present invention, when issuing a query, the
client places the question in the question section as usual, but then places all the answers it already knows into the (previously empty) answer section of the query. When receiving a query, a responder first checks to make sure that the answer it is about to give is not already included in the answer section of the query. If the answer is listed in the answer section of the query, it means that the
client already has that information, and doesn't need to be told again. In this way, when a
client issues its first
multicast query, it may receive many responses. When the client issues a subsequent query, it indicates the
list of responses it successfully received by listing them in the answer section, and then only receives responses that were missed the first time. In the normal course of operation, this means that by the second or third transmission of the query, no further responses are generated on the network, and the client can then issue occasional periodic queries without eliciting a flood of responses every time.