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

Claim 9:
10. A domain forwarding system comprising:
memory; and
one or more processors, wherein the one or more processors are configured to read and execute instructions stored on the memory to:
receive, 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;
identify 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:
identifying that a forwarder indication is present in an authoritative DNS zone configuration file specific to the authoritative DNS zone and that the forwarder indication indicates a forwarder service IP address of the forwarder service;
based upon identifying that the forwarder indication is present and indicates the forwarder service IP address:
parse from the forwarder indication the forwarder service IP address; and
forward the request to a forwarder service external to a local network of the client device and the authoritative DNS zone;

receive, 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;
identify 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:
determine 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, refrain from forwarding the second request to the forwarder service.