Internet structure. Where is the main internet server located?

Have you ever wondered where is the main server of the Internet, alpha hosting ? Or, who is the master of the Internet? Now, probably, most readers will laugh and say that the Internet cannot have any owner, since the Internet is just an association of many computers and other network devices.

Simple, but not quite simple. In a sense, the Internet has masters. After all, all this association of computers is not just a shapeless anthill; in fact, the Internet has a rigid hierarchical structure, the presence of which allows you to easily communicate with computers located on the other side of the globe. Who are these "owners"? How is it that the Internet does its job? What needs to be done to paralyze the Internet? These topics are the focus of today's article.

IP addresses

One of the most important organizations on the Internet is IANA - Internet Assigned Numbers Authority - "Internet Assigned Numbers Authority". This non-profit American organization is engaged in the distribution of IP addresses. Your Internet connection is made through one of the IP addresses on your subnet, the so-called gateway. And if this gateway receives data from the local network from an address that does not fall into the subnet described on the gateway, then it will simply ignore such a packet.

Domain names

But IP addresses are not the end of the matter - even if the Internet functions perfectly and packets reach the target IP addresses, we must not forget that we almost always use not IP addresses, wanting to get to any site, but normal names such as webakula.ua, and the translation of such names into IP addresses is answered by DNS services

If the DNS server of the Internet visitor does not know how to resolve the domain name (for example, webakula.ua), then he will turn not to anyone, but to the domain server responsible for the ua zone. And where will he get his address if he does not know it in advance? And for this, he will turn to one of the 13 so-called root DNS servers. But their addresses are already constant and are registered in all operating systems.

These root domain servers are operated by ICANN - Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. This, again, a non-profit American organization maintains the uninterrupted operation of 13 root servers, and also distributes those responsible for top-level domain zones - ua, ru, com and others. Each country has its own organization responsible for the respective top-level zone. And already this organization determines the procedure for distributing domain names in its country.
What needs to be done to disrupt the Internet so that DNS names are no longer resolved into IP addresses? To do this, disrupt the functioning of the root DNS servers. The Internet will "disappear", of course, not immediately, but problems will begin immediately. Attempts to attack these servers are made constantly. It is also possible to attack any specific top-level domain zone.

Google has become involved in storing information about domain names. Although it does not distribute domain names, it stores information about all available ones. The Google DNS address is very easy to remember: 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4.

It is extremely important to place the site on a high-quality and fault-tolerant hosting.