Route 53 Flashcards
What does DNS mean?
Domain Name Server
What does DNS do?
translates human friendly hostnames into machine IP addresses
DNS hierarchical naming structure
.com
example.com
www.example.com
api.example.com
What is a domain registrar example and what do they do?
Amazon Route 53, GoDaddy
And you register your domain names
What are DNS record types?
A
AAAA
CNAME
NS
What is a Zone File?
contains DNS records
What is a Name Server?
resolves DNS queries (Authoritative or Non-Authoritative)
What are Top Level Domains (TLD)?
.com
.us
.in
.gov
.org
What are second level domains? (SLD)
amazon.com
google.com
2 words between the dots
Break down http://api.www.example.com.
the dot after com is Root
.com = TLD (Top Level Domain)
.example = SLD (Second Level Domain)
.www = Sub Domain
api = FQDN (Fully Qualified Domain Name)
http = Protocol
http://api.www.example.com = URL
How does DNS work?
You have an EC2 instance (example) that hosts web server example.com with its IP address.
Web browser asks Local DNS server for example.com
If its not cached, the Local DNS server will ask the Root DNS server.
If the root DNS server does not know, it will tell the Local DNS Server to contact the TLD DNS Server (.com). Root DNS Server is familiar with .com.
The TLD DNS Server tells the Local DNS Server to contact the SLD DNS Server (second level domain) which is amazon registrar, route 53, goDaddy).
The SLD DNS server sends the result back to the Local DNS Server. The Local DNS server caches the result and then sends it to your web browser.
The web browser can now access that web server.
What is an Amazon Route 53?
Highly Available, scalable fully managed and Authoritative DNS
What does Authoritative DNS mean?
customer (you) can update DNS records.
Example of Authoritative DNS
You have an EC2 instance that can only be accessed through its public IP.
You create a record on your Route 53 and when you search for the name you chose it connects you to the server.
Is Route 53 a domain registrar as well?
Yes
Does Route 53 allow to check the health of your resources?
Yes
What is Route 53 SLA availability?
100% - only one in AWS
What does each record contain in Route 53?
Domain/subdomain name - example.com
Record Type - A or AAAA
Value - 12.34.56.78
Routing Policy - how Route 53 responds to queries
TTL (Time To Live) - amount of time the record is cached at DNS Resolvers
What type of records does Route 53 support?
A
AAAA
CNAME
NS
What is an A record?
Maps a hostname to IPv4
e.g. example.com -> IP
What is AAAA record?
maps hostname to IPv6
What is a CNMA record?
Maps a hostname to another hostname
Must haves for a CNAME to work?
Target must have A or AAAA record
What can you not do with CNAME?
Create a CNAME record for the top node of a DNS namespace (Zone Apex)
e.g. cant create for example.com but can create for www.example.com
What is an NS record?
Name Servers for the Hosted Zone
DNS names or IP addresses of servers which can respond to your DNS queries of the hosted zone
What does NS record control?
How traffic is routed for a domain
What are Route 54 Hosted Zones?
Containers that hold records which define how to route traffic to domain and subdomains
How many Hosted Zones are there?
2
What are Public Hosted Zones?
contain records that specify how to route traffic on the internet (public domain names)
What are Private Hosted Zones?
contains records that specify how you route traffic within one or more VPCs (private domain names)
How much do you pay per hosted zone?
$0.50 per month
Difference between Public & Private Hosted Zones?
Public is for resources that are public (S3, CloudFront, EC2, ALB)
Private is for resources inside your VPC - private resources with private domain names
What is a Record TTL?
Time To Live
How does TTL work?
The client asks Route 53 for a website. Route 53 sends the address of the website back to the client and includes TTL (e.g. 300s).
What that means is that the client will cache the result for 300 seconds. Which means that if you request the same info in the next 300 seconds, the client will not ask Route 53 for that information.
What does High TTL (24hr) mean? And what is one downside?
That it will have less traffic on Route 53
Outdated records - have to wait 24hr for it to update
What does Low TTL (e.g. 60s) mean? What is one upside/downside
More traffic to Route 53 (more expensive since you pay per request)
Records are outdated for less time
Easy to change the records
Is TTL mandatory for every DNS record?
Yes except Alias record
Which record is TTL not mandatory for?
Alias record
Difference between CNAME and ALIAS?
ALIAS works for ROOT DOMAIN and NON ROOT DOMAIN where as CNAME only works for NON ROOT DOMAIN
Give an example of CNAME
I want to change my load balancer domain which is
* lb1-1234.eu-east-2.elb.amazonaws.com to myapp.mydomain.com
Give an example of not being able to Point CNAME to a ROOT DOMAIN
for example I cannot have google.example.com point to example.com because example.com is ROOT DOMAIN
What can you do with an ALIAS?
You can point host name to an AWS resource
e.g.
app.mydomain.com -> blabla.amazonaws.com