Cyber Fundamentals Block 4 Practice Test 2026 - Free Cybersecurity Practice Questions and Study Guide

Domain names are converted to IP addresses by the Domain Name System. DNS acts like an address book for the Internet: when you enter a name, your device asks a DNS resolver to find the numeric IP address associated with that name. The resolver consults a hierarchy of servers—root, top-level domain, and authoritative servers—and returns an IP that the device uses to connect to the destination. This translation is essential because computers route traffic using IP addresses, while people remember names. DNS records show the exact mapping (for example, an A record for IPv4 or a AAAA record for IPv6). The system is distributed and cached to speed up lookups and improve reliability.

DHCP assigns IP addresses on a local network, not domain-to-IP translation. A proxy server forwards requests and may use its own caching or filtering, but it doesn’t serve as the primary name-to-address translator. A web server delivers content at a given address and doesn’t resolve domain names to IPs.