What is DNS for?

DNS (which stands for Domain Name System) is the system computers use to locate each other across the Internet.

Domains are collections of computers that belong together. For example, any web page ending in .edu indicates that the web page (and its associated computer) belongs to an educational institution. Any web page ending in .illinois.edu belongs specifically to the educational institution which is University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

What is a DNS server?

In simplest terms, a DNS server keeps track of the correlations between human-readable computer names (like mycomputer.illinois.edu) and machine-readable computer identification numbers (commonly called IP addresses and given in the form 123.123.123.123).

Do I need to know about DNS servers?

In most cases, you won't need to know about DNS servers or change your computer's configuration to access them.

Most modern computers can automatically detect the campus DNS servers through a service known as DHCP. If you're not having any problems with your network connection and if your computer is always connected to the same network, you don't need to change anything.

However, in some cases, you may need to override DHCP's automatic DNS detection and assign a specific DNS server or IP address.

What are the campus DNS servers' IP addresses?

If a network connection's configuration process asks for DNS server information, and choosing the "automatic" or "DHCP" option doesn't work for you, you can use this IP address to identify the campus DNS servers: