ICANN Acronyms and Terms
Type in the acronym or term you are looking for in the Search bar below.
In addition to English, translated versions of acronyms and terms are also available in Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian, and Spanish. Links for each language are located in the top right of the page.
Click the first letter of the term you are looking for to search alphabetically.
Do you have feedback on the definitions or the terms? Send us an email to: [email protected].
A
authoritative name server
A Domain Name System (DNS) server that hosts the official database of resource records (the registry) for a DNS zone. The registry identifies the Internet Protocol (IP) addresses of the host servers (e.g., web servers, mail servers) and name servers in the authoritative name server’s zone. The resource records in its registry enable an authoritative name server to respond definitively to queries about the servers and subdomains within its zone.
To enable other computers to reach host servers within a domain, the domain must have one or more authoritative name servers. The name and IP addresses of those servers must also appear in the registry of the domain’s parent domain.