What are NS records?

Solution 1:

NS Resource Records are records in the DNS database to determine which authorative name servers are used for the domain.

    IN    NS    ns1.itahost.com
    IN    NS    ns2.itahost.com

The DNS database is used to convert (sub)domain names to IP adresses. They work as a distributed telephone book. Records are kept in cache for a time (mostly 24 hours) that's why it often requires at leats 24 hours to change a domain. (Else the old value van still be stored somewhere in a cache.

As you might understand, DNS servers are very important to the general workings of the internet. And they are a prime target for crackers.

Solution 2:

When someone goes to your website (say http://www.yournewsite.com), the domain name gets resolved to an IP address. This IP Address is that of the web server where you are hosting your website.

This automatic resolution of domain name to IP Address happens by DNS lookups and the original record mapping of your domain name to the public IP address is maintained in the Name Server.

So after you point your domain's NS records to ns1.itahost.com & ns2.itahost.com, the requests to your domain name would reach ns1.itahost.com or ns2.itahost.com where it would be resolved to the public IP address of the server where your application is hosted.

Eventually, the mapping of domain name to IP address would get copied on to different DNS servers across the world, but during a lookup if any DNS server cannot find it, it could trace it from ns1.itahost.com or ns2.itahost.com because that's the NS record for your domain name.

A bit of extra information: In the name servers (ie ns1.itahost.com ns2.itahost.com), you keep different record mappings for websites, sub domains, email etc. I guess this activity will be done by the hosting provider, but you could check with your provider.

If need be, then you could host your website under one hosting provider and email under another. In this case, you'll have to map the A-record (for website) and MX record (for email) to the respective IP addresses.

Hope this helps. Cheers.

Solution 3:

NS is acronym used by DNS (Domain Name Server) system to refer to a "Name Server" - which is a box on the public internet whose function is to maintain a database of Internet Domain names (like www.mcrsoft.com or mail.whitehouse.gov) and the tcp/ip addresses (like 123.12.34.56) that each can be located at, and then when asked, retrieve and tell that tcp/ip address when requested