CA 29 – Setup a DNS Hosted Zone in Route53 (AWS)

This task was about setting up a DNS hosted zone in AWS Route53. Before doing this, I only knew that DNS converts domain name into IP address, but I did not know how we actually configure DNS in real systems. This exercise helped me understand that part a little better.

First I logged into AWS console and searched for Route53. Inside Route53 there is something called Hosted Zones. Hosted zone is basically a place where we store DNS records for a domain. So if we own a domain like example.com, we create a hosted zone for that domain and then add records like A record, CNAME etc.

So I created a hosted zone by giving the domain name and selecting public hosted zone. After creating it, AWS automatically created some default records like NS and SOA records. The NS records are important because they tell the internet that AWS Route53 is handling DNS for this domain.

Then the next step was to add records. I added an A record which maps a domain name to an IP address. For example, I mapped my domain to a server IP so that when someone types the domain name in the browser, it will go to that server.

One thing I understood here is DNS is not instant. After changing records, it takes some time to propagate. Sometimes a few minutes, sometimes longer.

So overall the steps I did were:
First create hosted zone
Then note the name servers
Then add DNS records like A record or CNAME
Then wait for DNS propagation

This exercise helped me understand that DNS is like a phonebook of the internet. Route53 is basically AWS service that manages that phonebook.