Chapter 1. Background

The White Rabbit put on his spectacles. "Where shall I begin, please your Majesty?" he asked.

"Begin at the beginning," the King said, very gravely, "and go on till you come to the end: then stop."

It's important to know a little ARPAnet history to understand the Domain Name System. DNS was developed to address particular problems on the ARPAnet, and the Internet—a descendant of the ARPAnet—remains its main user.

If you've been using the Internet for years, you can probably skip this chapter. If you haven't, we hope it'll give you enough background to understand what motivated the development of DNS.