What is the primary purpose of DNS?

• A. To translate human-readable domain names into machine-friendly IP addresses.
• B. To route email traffic between servers.
• C. To register domain names with registries.
• D. To manage firewall rules for a network.

Answer: (A)

The primary function is to map human-friendly domain names to the numeric IP addresses that machines use to locate and connect to services on the network. When you type a URL, your device asks DNS servers to translate that name into an IP address, enabling your browser to reach the correct server. DNS also speeds things up by caching results, so frequent lookups are faster.

Other options describe tasks that DNS doesn’t perform: routing mail is handled by mail servers (often guided by DNS records like MX, but not the DNS's main job itself); registering a domain is done with registries/registrars; and managing firewall rules is a function of network devices and security systems. The essential role of DNS is the name-to-address translation that makes network communication possible.