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When I do reverse DNS queries with IP address that I obtained from DNS query of one website, it shows many different domain names, why is it so? I thought if I do the reverse DNS query I will obtain the domain name which I did with just DNS query. Reverse DNS doesn't work correct or all those names are correct? I don't understand

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See github.com/stephane-chazelas/bro-pdns-forward-dns for a way to have the reverse lookup give you the last name you have resolved to that IP address. –  Stéphane Chazelas Dec 8 '13 at 10:17

1 Answer 1

The mapping between an IP address and a domain name isn't one-to-one. You can have any number of (possibly completely unrelated) domain names pointing to the same IP address. (And conversely, a given domain name can resolve to several different IP addresses.)

This is perfectly normal, and quite usual.

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Thank you but why it can have any number of domain names pointing the same IP address? I still don't get that –  user54039 Dec 8 '13 at 10:06
Because it's very practical. Needing one separate IP address for each and every website out there would be a pain (think hosting sites, VPS, blog platforms and such). Would be a waste of IPv4 space too. –  Mat Dec 8 '13 at 10:09

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