Is there a main server for the internet?

Question

Do all internet queries go through a mian server or a series of servers somewhere? Where is it and who maintains it? It cant just exist....can it?

Answer 1

The internet was designed originally for use by the military and government research organizations, under a different name ARPANET, as a distributed heterogeneous network capable of surviving a nuclear strike. Thus there is no single control point, removing key computers will slow down the system but not totally disrupt it.

The closest you come to a "main" computer is one of the root domain name servers (DNS). The DNS servers maintain a certain hierarchy. when you request an connection your request is routed to your primary DNS server which if possible will determine the correct IP address. If your local DNS server doesn't have this information it will pass you request up through a hierarchy to another DNS server and so on until it can resolve the address. So you have a distributed system for DNS servers which is why it takes a certain amount of time for a new URL to propagate and be available globally.

Once you receive the IP address your request is broken down into IP packets and sent to a router. The routers maintain a list of know connection points and sent the packets to your target computer. Most computers can be reached in a surprising small number of hops (router connections).

Answer 2

No, but there are a few main DNS (Domain Name Server) that everything usually has to go through. A DNS is what converts the URL you type into an IP address, you could use your own, but it would be impossible to keep up with all of the new sites created every day.

Answer 3

uh no, there is not a "main" server. There are many, many "routers" that packets travel around the Internet. All the different web sites reside on different servers in Data Centers that are located all over the world.

Answer 4

the Internet is a virtual network, it is a combination of heterogeneous system by hardware, software , by architecture and by operating systems.
The servers that are maintained for sharing resource are interconnected.
if u are accessing Internet a particular ISP, he will provide a server to cache the contents. also known as proxy server.

the content that u access may be a cached content from that server.

the straight answer for Ur question is no single server.