What is the difference between a WINS server and a DNS server?

What is the difference between a WINS server and a DNS server?

For many people, the relationship between the WINS server and the DNS server is still mysterious. However, we hope to clarify this matter with your question.

First, DNS refers to "Domain Name Server", while WINS refers to "Windows Internet name service ". Both are used to resolve the domain name, but the method used is completely different!

To help illustrate this problem, I want to use an example to ensure that you can correctly understand the two services.

Consider a file server named "Jupiter" and the following two commands:

Ping Jupiter.space.net

Net use * jupiter mainshare

The preceding two commands seem very similar. The first command is to send a ping (icmp echo) packet to our file server to confirm that the server is working. The second command calls the same server (jupiter) to connect to a shared folder named "mainshare.

Although both commands point to the same server (Jupiter), the difference between them is very important.

Here, Ping uses DNS to resolve Jupiter.space.net to an IP address, for example, 204.45.12.1. The "net use" command uses WINS to resolve the NetBIOS name "Jupiter" to an IP address.

In this way, you may wonder why two different services are actually completing the same task?

The answer to this question is that each of these two services relies on different protocols. They only work in different ways.

WINS is an important part of Microsoft's network topology. In the past, you had to run a WINS server on a Windows Network to avoid domain name resolution problems. At that time, the NetBIOS (Windows machine name) protocol only worked on the NetBEUI transport protocol. If you have used Windows 95, you will remember that the NetBEUI protocol often appears in your network attributes. In Network Properties, TCP/IP protocol is also an option.

Currently, DNS has replaced WINS. Microsoft has modified NetBIOS to allow it to use the TCP/IP stack to complete its work (NetBIOS on TCP/IP protocol). Most DNS servers can process NetBIOS requests. This is why the number of WINS servers is getting fewer and fewer.

In short, DNS Maps TCP/IP host names to IP addresses, while WINS maps NetBIOS host names to IP addresses.