VPC's DNS server

A VPC's DNS server (specifically the Amazon-provided DNS server at the VPC network range base + 2, like 10.0.0.2) serves several important purposes:

1. Internal DNS Resolution

• It allows EC2 instances within the VPC to resolve the private DNS hostnames of other instances in the same VPC

• For example, if you have an EC2 instance, it can automatically resolve hostnames like "ip-10-0-0-123.ec2.internal"

1. Public DNS Resolution

• It also handles external DNS queries to the internet

• When enabled with Internet Gateway, instances can resolve public domain names

It's not exactly a "private DNS server" in the traditional sense - it's better described as a DNS resolver or forwarder. Here's why:

• It doesn't host its own DNS zones like a traditional private DNS server would

• Instead, it acts as an intermediary that handles DNS resolution requests

• For internal VPC resources, it works with Amazon's internal DNS system

• For external domains, it forwards requests to Amazon's DNS servers

If you need actual private DNS hosting, you would typically use Route 53 Private Hosted Zones with your VPC for custom domain names.