Patent ID: 11902242
Assignee: UNITED SERVICES AUTOMOBILE ASSOCIATION (USAA)
Field: Digital communication (Electrical engineering)
Classification: CPC H | IPC H

Claim 4:
5. A method, comprising:
receiving, from a client device, at an authoritative domain name system (DNS) zone, a request to resolve a domain name to an Internet Protocol (IP) address;
identifying that the request cannot be satisfied via the authoritative DNS zone; and in response to identifying that the request cannot be satisfied via the authoritative DNS zone:
determining that a forwarder service is enabled for the authoritative DNS zone, by identifying whether a forwarder indication is present in an authoritative DNS zone configuration file specific to the authoritative DNS zone;
based upon determining that the forwarder service is enabled for the authoritative DNS zone the forwarder indication is present and comprises a forwarder service IP address of the forwarder service:
parsing from the forwarder indication the forwarder service IP address; and
forwarding the request to the forwarder service IP address of the forwarder service external to a local network of the client device and the authoritative DNS zone;

receiving, from a second client device, at a second authoritative domain name system (DNS) zone, a second request to resolve a domain name to an Internet Protocol (IP) address;
identifying that the second request cannot be satisfied via the second authoritative DNS zone; and
based upon identifying that the second request cannot be satisfied via the second authoritative DNS zone:
determining that a forwarder service is not enabled for the second authoritative zone, based upon a lack of presence of the forwarder indication, the forwarder service IP address, or both in a second authoritative DNS zone configuration file of the second authoritative DNS zone; and
based upon determining that the forwarder service is not enabled for the second authoritative DNS zone, refraining from forwarding the second request to the forwarder service.