Setting up a Root name server

[Cricket Liu]

chris <chris at megabytecoffee.com> wrote in message
news:<37CF1DE7.36C502D4 at megabytecoffee.com>...
> If my resolving DNS server has a list of root name servers that at best
are
> 40ms away. It is going to take A LOT more time to access then a root
> nameserver that is say.. 2ms away. Not to mention that most of the root
> nameservers can't answer queries all the time. Sometimes
a.root-servers.net
> works great.. and other times it sucks. By having a root server on our
network
> with the best RTT that can answer query's all the time, we bypass all
that.

I'm not clear on how you're going to get your name servers to *use* this new
internal root name server.  When your internal name servers start up,
they'll fire off a query to one of the name servers in their root hints file
and ask for the current list of roots.  Since your name server isn't in that
list, they won't query it.

I guess you could list only your root name server in your internal root
hints file, to make sure your internal name servers send that query there,
and then add your name server to the NS records in the root zone, but then
if your internal root fails for some reason, all of your internal name
servers could lose the ability to do Internet name resolution.  Also, when
your internal name servers time out the root zone's NS records, they'll
choose one of the root name servers to query again, and maybe they'll get
your internal root and maybe they won't.  So they'll periodically forget
about the internal root name server entirely.

What Barry pointed out is also correct:  that most of the benefit would come
from having a local com name server.  But, as I've said, com is well over a
gigabyte at this point, and BIND loads all that zone data into memory.

If you figure out a way to make this all work, I'm eager to hear about it,
because I do think it would be useful for large, private networks.  I just
think it's more complicated than it at first seems.

cricket

Acme Byte & Wire
cricket at acmebw.com
www.acmebw.com

Attend our next DNS and BIND class!  See
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cricket

Acme Byte & Wire
cricket at acmebw.com
www.acmebw.com

Attend our next DNS and BIND class!  See
www.acmebw.com/training.htm for the
schedule and to register for upcoming
classes.