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amungus
Premium Member
join:2004-11-26
America

amungus

Premium Member

question

Ok, so should I just go ahead and get the list of ROOT DNS servers right now?

Can an avg. home user use them or their nearest neighbors that are NOT part of this whole redirection insanity?

I really don't get it. Isn't AOL still around? If people want this, can they not still sign up for AOL? ...Wait, AOL IS TW isn't it?

Starting to think I want nothing to do with such a service after looking at that Cox forum's 1st page...
The pic that showed 'suggested' results didn't even have DSLR or anything close listed in its 'results' there...

Sure, everyone mis-types an address from time to time, but if it gives me this kind of junk before I can click the stop button, or a generic REAL error result, then I want absolutely nothing to do with it.

Seriously, this makes no sense, even for a little extra profit.. SEARCH ENGINES are very helpful if you aren't sure of a web address... That's been one of their primary functions since the beginning.
openbox9
Premium Member
join:2004-01-26
71144

openbox9

Premium Member

said by amungus:

Can an avg. home user use them or their nearest neighbors that are NOT part of this whole redirection insanity?
You can use whatever DNS servers you'd like. I wouldn't use the root servers though.

swhx7
Premium Member
join:2006-07-23
Elbonia

swhx7

Premium Member

Agreed. Going directly to the root servers is not the way it's supposed to work.

The standard envisions that each end device (your PC) will use a local-to-it DNS server - specifically one provided by the organization the user is a part of, or the internet provider. If that server doesn't have the answer it will pass the query to a higher-level DNS server, and so on, the root servers being a last resort (but they will just try to point your query to the appropriate provider).

And if there is no IP found for the domain name, the standard says a NX reply should be returned. It is these that the ISPs are hijacking to spew some ads at users.

Until this latest fast-buck scam it was always the ISP's job to provide a standards-compliant DNS server.

Even with this nonsense going on, in most cases the ISP has offered at least one correctly-behaving DNS server for customers who want to opt out of the falsified results. If you are subject to this redirection and want to avoid it, see if there is an address for a real DNS server hidden in some corner of your provider's website.

fifty nine
join:2002-09-25
Sussex, NJ

fifty nine

Member

They'll probably start blocking external DNS servers next.

That's the next logical step, anyway.

Pretty soon all we'll be left with is port 80, 443 and a few others.

RARPSL
join:1999-12-08
Suffern, NY

RARPSL to swhx7

Member

to swhx7
said by swhx7:

Agreed. Going directly to the root servers is not the way it's supposed to work.

The standard envisions that each end device (your PC) will use a local-to-it DNS server - specifically one provided by the organization the user is a part of, or the internet provider. If that server doesn't have the answer it will pass the query to a higher-level DNS server, and so on, the root servers being a last resort (but they will just try to point your query to the appropriate provider).
This provider supplied DNS Server while the normal case is a fall-back to the case were there is a running DNS Server on the user's Computer/LAN. In that case, it is that DNS Server that does the resolution or goes to the Root Server and runs the chain to the correct Authorised DNS Server.

BTW: If you run your own DNS Server, update your ROOT-SERVERS list since one of them has changed its IPN and will in a few months go away (it has two IPNs right now and the old one will be withdrawn eventually).

SpaethCo
Digital Plumber
MVM
join:2001-04-21
Minneapolis, MN

SpaethCo to amungus

MVM

to amungus
said by amungus:

Ok, so should I just go ahead and get the list of ROOT DNS servers right now?
The root DNS servers will be of limited value to you, since they only serve up immediate records of ".", so: {com net org us info} and such. The root DNS servers tell you which Top Level Domain (tld) server to use to resolve the record another layer. (The gTLD servers for com and net, for example)
said by amungus:

Can an avg. home user use them or their nearest neighbors that are NOT part of this whole redirection insanity?
I recommend using one of the free DNS resolver options, like:

»www.opendns.com
»www.resolvingnameserver. ··· rns.html

Others suggest using DNS servers operated by Level(3) (4.x.x.x), but those are not openly approved for public use. Level(3) has talked about restricting recursive lookups to only their immediate customers, so even though they work for everyone today that might not continue to be the case if they get concerned with the traffic loads.
said by amungus:

Sure, everyone mis-types an address from time to time, but if it gives me this kind of junk before I can click the stop button, or a generic REAL error result, then I want absolutely nothing to do with it.
People click on advertisements, and since I've made money from ad click sources I can't complain too loudly about the practice. It's true that DNS redirection can break some functionality (mail servers and spam block list lookups, for instance), but those are generally problems that only the more savvy users run into. The more savvy broadband users should have no problems changing their resolving DNS servers to another option that meets their needs.
SpaethCo

SpaethCo to RARPSL

MVM

to RARPSL
said by RARPSL:

BTW: If you run your own DNS Server, update your ROOT-SERVERS list since one of them has changed its IPN and will in a few months go away (it has two IPNs right now and the old one will be withdrawn eventually).
The new list of root server IPs is automatically fetched when it does an NS lookup for "." from one of the IPs in the hints file. The hints file specifies the list of initial IPs to query, which is usually the root name servers, but any resolving server upstream from you in the DNS hierarchy could technically be used for the initial query. For Bind and most other popular name server daemons, the only time this name server change will be an issue is when the daemon is first started if it picks the L-server IP from its hint file you will have to wait for that request to time out before it will try another to get the NS list. Once the daemon is established there is absolutely no impact even if you never update the named.ca hints file.

en102
Canadian, eh?
join:2001-01-26
Valencia, CA

en102 to fifty nine

Member

to fifty nine
Yup... and then they'll be proxied/nat'd