computer A computer is a machine that can be programmed to Execution (computing), carry out sequences of arithmetic or logical operations (computation) automatically. Modern digital electronic computers can perform generic sets of operations known as C ...

systems, name resolution refers to the retrieval of the underlying numeric values corresponding to computer hostnames, account user names, group names, and other named entities. Computer operating systems commonly employ multiple key/value lists that associate easily remembered names with the integer numbers used to identify users, groups, other computers, hardware devices, and other entities. In that context, name resolution refers to the retrieval of numeric values given the associated names, while Reverse name resolution refers to the opposite process of finding the name(s) associated with specified numeric values: * In

computer networking A computer network is a set of computers sharing resources located on or provided by network nodes. The computers use common communication protocols over digital interconnections to communicate with each other. These interconnections are ma ...

, it refers to processes used to obtain the assigned

IP address An Internet Protocol address (IP address) is a numerical label such as that is connected to a computer network that uses the Internet Protocol for communication.. Updated by . An IP address serves two main functions: network interface ident ...

es needed to communicate with devices whose

host A host is a person responsible for guests at an event or for providing hospitality during it. Host may also refer to: Places * Host, Pennsylvania, a village in Berks County People *Jim Host (born 1937), American businessman * Michel Host ...

domain Domain may refer to: Mathematics *Domain of a function, the set of input values for which the (total) function is defined **Domain of definition of a partial function **Natural domain of a partial function **Domain of holomorphy of a function * Do ...

names are known. Examples include the

Domain Name System The Domain Name System (DNS) is a hierarchical and distributed naming system for computers, services, and other resources in the Internet or other Internet Protocol (IP) networks. It associates various information with domain names assigned to ...

(DNS),

Network Information Service The Network Information Service, or NIS (originally called Yellow Pages or YP), is a client–server directory service protocol for distributing system configuration data such as user and host names between computers on a computer network. Sun ...

and

Multicast DNS In computer networking, the multicast DNS (mDNS) protocol resolves hostnames to IP addresses within small networks that do not include a local name server. It is a Zero-configuration_networking#Name_service_discovery, zero-configuration service, u ...

(mDNS). IP addresses for devices on the local segment can in turn be resolved to

MAC address A media access control address (MAC address) is a unique identifier assigned to a network interface controller (NIC) for use as a network address in communications within a network segment. This use is common in most IEEE 802 networking techno ...

es by invoking the

Address Resolution Protocol The Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) is a communication protocol used for discovering the link layer address, such as a MAC address, associated with a given internet layer address, typically an IPv4 address. This mapping is a critical function ...

(ARP). * Unix operating systems associate both an alphanumeric name and a

user Ancient Egyptian roles * User (ancient Egyptian official), an ancient Egyptian nomarch (governor) of the Eighth Dynasty * Useramen, an ancient Egyptian vizier also called "User" Other uses * User (computing), a person (or software) using an ...

group A group is a number of persons or things that are located, gathered, or classed together. Groups of people * Cultural group, a group whose members share the same cultural identity * Ethnic group, a group whose members share the same ethnic iden ...

ID with each

account or defined

of user names. The

GNU C Library The GNU C Library, commonly known as glibc, is the GNU Project's implementation of the C standard library. Despite its name, it now also directly supports C++ (and, indirectly, other programming languages). It was started in the 1980s by ...

provides various operating system facilities that shell commands and other applications can call to resolve such names to the corresponding addresses or IDs, and vice versa. Some Linux distributions use an nsswitch.conf file to specify the order in which multiple resolution services are used to effect such lookups.

References

Computer libraries {{compu-stub

See also

References