The Domain Name System (DNS) is a network of servers that translates human-readable domain names like www.example.com into machine-readable IP addresses like 192.0.2.1. DNS is a vital component of the internet, because it allows email and other web-based applications to function properly. email works by sending messages from one server to another using IP addresses. However, humans are much better at remembering words than numbers, so email addresses typically use domain names instead of IP addresses. When you send an email, your computer contacts a DNS server to look up the IP address of the email server for the recipient’s domain. The DNS server then forwards your email to the correct email server using the IP address it looked up. This process happens automatically and is largely transparent to users. However, it is important to understand DNS in order to troubleshoot email delivery problems. For example, if you try to send an email and get an error message saying that the recipient’s server could not be found, it is likely that there is a problem with the DNS settings for the recipient’s domain.