What is the difference between A and NS zone records

I have registered a domain with Godaddy. I want to know few things.

The NS records are something like ns1.domaincontrol.com and there are A records too filled by some IP 68.x.x.x default.

When I type my example.com in the address bar, which of these two records (NS, A) will be used to show me the Godaddy page with ads in it?

Is it not enough if they just put the A records with their IP and leave the NS records?

And also, I am not able to remove the NS records to blank. Why are they so important? What is the use of NS records afterall?

My problem finally is,
I want to redirect my root to www subdomain where I have blogger blog. How can I do it?

 

The "ns" (nameserver) records are the names of the DNS servers/records that are authorative (responsible) for your domain. In plain english, it is the DNS servers that other DNS servers should go to to ask where to find the services for your domain.

When you register the domain you will normally "tell" the domain registrar what DNS servers are responsible for your domain. On the DNS server/record itself you will confirm that these DNS servers ARE responsible for your domain.

If someone wanted to send you an email, a DNS request will be made for the MX records for your domain. That query may initially go to a central DNS server who might say (translated), "I don't know, but if you go to ns1.thedomainserver.com at xx.xx.xx.xx they will be able to tell you". The sending DNS server will ultimately connect to your DNS server and it will respond with the appropriate IP for the MX record for your domain. The sending server will then send the email to the IP address the authorative DNS servers have provided.

You shouldn't delete these NS records from the DNS server because they are critical -that's probably why you can't delete them from the record.


The authorative DNS record/server for your domain will contain a bunch of info about where certain services are for your domain. For instance, it will contain the www record (for your website), the MX records and their translations, the FTP record which will have the IP address of the FTP server for your domain.

If you want your website to be found at a different IP address thenyou would change the www record to the appropriate IP. You may also need to change the default or * IP to that IP too.

DNS records aren't something you should play with if you aren't sure. If you don't know what you are doing you could make you web site or other services (email, FTP, stats etc) unobtainable by either not having the record at all or by putting in the wrong IP address. Consult your host before making any changes and ask them to help you out.

 

Thanks Ron, this was really helpful. Till now I was thinking that NS records are other way adding A records. But now I came to know that there is lot of difference between the two.