[TriLUG] DNS

[Magnus Hedemark]

On 13 Jan 2004, Jon Carnes wrote:

> > You don't need forwarders.  Especially not if you're on an ISP with 
> > known spotty DNS service.  Just set yourself up as a caching server and go 
> > straight to authoritative sources, bypassing the RR servers.
> 
> I don't think that is good advice.

In general, I might tend to agree with you, but in the case of an RR 
customer I have to stick to my guns.

I mean, they did just change the IP's of their nameservers without giving 
customers a reasonable heads-up, no?

And while I'm no longer contributing to their coffers, I had been for a 
couple of years and the DNS servers were terribly spotty.

Running a caching nameserver fixed the symptoms.  End users are powerless 
to fix the root problem.

> Admittedly this will give you better DNS service (if your ISP's sucks),
> but it also puts a bigger load on the root name servers. 

They can handle it.

> If every
> household by-passed their ISP DNS servers and used the root ones instead
> that would create a larger load on those servers than they are designed
> for.

How many households contain geeks that even know, I mean *really* know, 
what DNS is?  If 10% of the people on this mailing list follow the advice 
I gave, it won't even be a blip on the radar of the root nameserver 
admins.  But that many more geeks will have consistent DNS service.

> If that type of load continues to grow I wouldn't be surprised to see
> the root name servers limit access to only registered ISP's. 

Or just upgrade hardware.

And really, we're not talking about putting the root nameservers in 
/etc/resolv.conf.  Let's not forget the "caching" function of a "caching 
nameserver".

What I'm suggesting is bypassing a component of the RR service that has a 
long history of problems, assuming you've even had problems (as some 
insist that they've never had nameserver issues with RR... whether they 
are lucky, lying or not using the 'net much is up for speculation).

> DNS works great in a distributed model, and RoadRunners DNS is really
> good. I find that most of my hits against their DNS are already cached.
> Ben and his crew have done a lot over the past year to make all of
> RoadRunners services better.

I can't speak directly for the last year, but the previous two years were 
terrible.

The most recent even that I know of is the unannounced change of 
nameserver IP's, with the assumption on RR's part that changing it in DHCP 
was "good enough".  Anyone who was trying to be a good citizen and use 
forwarders would have been burned.

--Magnus (just Magnus)