Chapter 1

Welcome & How to Use This Book

Lab company, exercises, and how the series fits together.

In this book

  • Understand what domain names are and who controls them
  • Read and write DNS records for websites and email
  • Trace a lookup from browser to server
  • Troubleshoot wrong IPs, stale cache, and broken mail
  • Design a complete DNS plan for a real-world scenario

How to use this textbook

This is a free, self-paced digital textbook from Swift Host. Each chapter builds on the last. You do not need a server account to learn — pencil, paper, and the exercises in your browser are enough.

Tip

Read a chapter, do the exercises, then check your answers in the collapsible sections at the bottom. If something is unclear, note it — this book is living documentation and chapters get refined as we go.

Meet your lab company

Throughout this book we use a fictional Canadian business:

Workshop Co.

Domain
workshopco.ca
Business
Weekend woodworking classes in Edmonton, Alberta
Website
Marketing site + online booking
Email
Google Workspace at @workshopco.ca
Staging
staging.workshopco.ca for testing before go-live

Every worked example and capstone exercise uses Workshop Co. By Chapter 10 you will design their full DNS zone from scratch.

This is Book 1 of 8 in the Swift Host infrastructure series — DNS through cloud architecture and AI literacy. Book 8 covers APIs, LLMs, tokens, and context length.

What you need

  • A modern web browser
  • Optional: Terminal with dig (macOS/Linux) — we show online alternatives too
  • A notebook for the “Try it yourself” sections

Try it yourself — Before Chapter 2

Open your browser and visit a site you manage (or any site you use daily). Write down:

  1. The domain name you typed (or clicked)
  2. Whether you typed www or not
  3. What you think happens between pressing Enter and seeing the page
Discussion notes (not a single right answer)

You typed a hostname (e.g. swifthost.ca or www.swifthost.ca). Your browser does not connect directly to that name — it asks DNS to translate the name into an IP address first. Chapter 3 walks through that journey in detail.

Key terms introduced

Domain name
A human-readable label registered for use on the internet (e.g. workshopco.ca).
DNS
Domain Name System — the phone book of the internet.
Hostname
A specific name under a domain, like www.workshopco.ca or mail.workshopco.ca.