HTTP & DNS U2L6 Question

CS Principles Unit and Lesson Discussion
1

I was a bit confused by the Internet simulator on this level. The simulator makes students send a GET request to ask for an IP address. While I know that HTTP sends GET requests for web files, I wasn’t aware a DNS query also involves a GET request (the IP Addresses & DNS video doesn’t show this). In addition, once the IP address is returned, the process of communicating with the other students on the router doesn’t involve a GET request at all. Although the simulator was fine for teaching networking concepts up to this point (with constant reminders to students that computers are communicating with each other, not necessarily people), this is where I think it fell short in terms of not providing insight into HTTP.

Is there something I’m missing in terms of how DNS works? I thought it was only a system for providing/tracking IP addresses and that HTTP handles the GET requests. Does DNS ever involve GET requests at all?

Thanks for any input.

2

It is true that HTTP protocol defines a GET record type and DNS does not. I would guess the simulator uses GET as the name of a DNS record because the DNS protocol itself doesn’t have a good name for the format it uses.

In answer to your question no, DNS protocol doesn’t define a record of type GET. Mixing up names of convenience with real world equivalents might not be the right way to go. You should open a support ticket and request a change to reduce confusion.

3

Thank you Don. I’ll submit it as a bug and hope for the best!