The root servers are name servers on the Internet which contain data for the DNS.
The root server system is vital in the Internet’s successful functionality; if a name server cannot find a particular domain it will ask the root server.
The root servers can be found on a number of IP addresses; policies state that the number of root servers is limited to 13. These servers act as the Internet’s address book by storing a copy of the information which acts as an Internet index. This index holds a list of addresses for each top-level domain where that particular registry’s index can be found.
Once a computer knows the address of a particular top-level domain it remembers this, which is why the root server is not checked frequently. However, the computer will check back to the server occasionally to ensure the address hasn’t changed.
The 13 file servers range in names with the format: (letter).root-servers.net, the letters range from A to M. Prior to the introduction of using letters to determine the different root servers, the servers had personalized names.
The root servers are located in the US, UK, Sweden and Japan and are updated by operators who work with ICANN.
The separate servers have different operators:
A: 198.41.0.4- VeriSign
B: 192.228.79.201- USC- ISI
C: 192.33.4.12- Cogent Communications
D: 12.8.10.90- University of Maryland
E: 192.203.230.10- NASA
F: 192.5.5.241 – Internet Systems Consortium
G: 192.112.36.4- Defense Information Systems Agency
H: 128.63.2.53- U.S Army Research Lab
I: 192.36.148.17- Autonomica
J: 192.58.128.30- VeriSign
K: 193.0.14.129- RIPE NNC
L: 199.7.83.42- ICANN
M: 202.12.27.33- WIDE Project
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