old vs new dns servers

Forums › Spark New Zealand (including Skinny and BigPipe) › old vs new dns servers

tombrownzz

147 posts

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#72531 28-Nov-2010 12:28

On telecom's help page they list their old and new primary dns servers:

http://telecom.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/1274/kw/dns/session/L3RpbWUvMTI5MDg5OTg1Mi9zaWQvM3I1QWk3Z2s%3D

What are the pros and cons of using old vs new?

Ragnor

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#410525 29-Nov-2010 00:17

Some discussion about it here
http://www.geekzone.co.nz/forums.asp?forumid=39&topicid=58976#310987

Really it shouldn't make any difference.

Just set your adsl modem to use whatever dns servers are automatically assigned by the isp (in this case telecom?) and then you will always be using what they recommend.

Zeon

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#410538 29-Nov-2010 02:34

Ragnor: Some discussion about it here
http://www.geekzone.co.nz/forums.asp?forumid=39&topicid=58976#310987

Really it shouldn't make any difference.

Just set your adsl modem to use whatever dns servers are automatically assigned by the isp (in this case telecom?) and then you will always be using what they recommend.

+1 always do this where possible.

Speedtest 2019-10-14

digitaldivide

94 posts

Master Geek
Inactive user

#410544 29-Nov-2010 07:33

And you can rank/test the DNS servers you are using against other DNS servers using Google Namebench.

http://code.google.com/p/namebench/

ptinson

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#410554 29-Nov-2010 08:42

The old DNS caching servers (alien & terminator) are considered legacy and should be avoided.
In the future they may stop functioning as caching resolvers.

Given things like Akamai CDN, Google Caches and the HTTP cache farm setting your modem to use automatically assigned DNS caches is the best advice.

If you ever have a requirement to call the helpdesk they are very likely to check you have it set to automatic at any rate.

That KB page still doesn't reflect our newest servers:

ns1.xtra.co.nz - 122.56.237.1
ns2.xtra.co.nz - 210.55.111.1

These are only open to customers since December, there are a few side cases where this isn't true like moving house etc as it results in a new connection.

Hope this helps

Paul

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