Xtra DNS servers, AWOL or what?

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tstone

381 posts

Ultimate Geek

#58550 23-Jan-2007 09:16

Hi, yess as an xtra customer I have been having problems since late last year. I thought it was just me and my router

3g

341 posts

Ultimate Geek

#58553 23-Jan-2007 09:56

Xtra customer here too.

In response to the customer services theory that they would have had "thousands of calls" if there was a problem, they should realize:

(1) Most customers who have been with Xtra for any period of time realize that it's normally a complete waste of time complaining about these things. In all fairness, these problems can be difficult to trace - but don't claim the problem doesn't exist.
(2) A lot of customers won't actually realize what's going wrong. At off-peak times the problem can be resolved by submitting each request 2-3 times. Some people might think that's the way the internet is supposed to work 8-).
(3) A lot of people don't like complaining over the telephone so they are probably trying to go to xtra.co.nz - oops, I forgot, the DNS lookup for that normally fails 8-).

Nigel H.

Shin

274 posts

Ultimate Geek

#58577 23-Jan-2007 12:17

any recommendation server to set public DNS for backup?

local DNS would be great, hard to find one myself locally.

juha

1317 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#58578 23-Jan-2007 12:19

There isn't really such a thing, because of Internet abuse. Your ISP is the best option in most cases.

Juha

Shin

274 posts

Ultimate Geek

#58588 23-Jan-2007 13:39

juha: There isn't really such a thing, because of Internet abuse. Your ISP is the best option in most cases.

Thanks juha.

Well have to use oversea servers then..

here is list for public DNSes (mostly if not all Korean servers, reasonably reliable)

61.81.63.1　　　　　cnns.kornet.net
168.126.63.1　　　　kns.kornet.net
168.126.63.2　　　　nsr2.kornet.net

210.220.163.82　　　qns1.hananet.net
210.94.6.67　　　　 qns2.hananet.net
210.94.0.7　　　　　fns1.hananet.net

164.124.101.2　　　　ns.dacom.co.kr
203.248.252.2　　　　cns3.bora.net
164.124.107.9　　　　cns2.bora.net

168.188.1.1　　　　　baekma.cnu.ac.kr
147.46.80.1　　　　　ercc.snu.ac.kr
202.30.46.2　　　　　hyunam.hanbat.ac.kr
211.253.42.70　　　　ipserver.kdischool.ac.kr
211.253.42.71　　　　ipserver1.kdischool.ac.kr

210.102.100.1　　　　　edunet kmec.net
210.117.65.1　　　　　ns1.thrunet.com
204.252.145.2　　　　　user2.toyotadealer.com
204.252.145.10　　　　　user10.toyotadealer.com

203.238.128.22　　　　　ns2.nownuri.net
203.238.128.23　　　　　kumkang.nownuri.net
203.238.128.24　　　　　ns.nownuri.net

bitserf

101 posts

Master Geek

#58600 23-Jan-2007 14:16

Hi Shin,

Your issue then would be the latency between New Zealand and Korea, and if your ISP's international link goes down, so does your DNS, unless its as a pure backup, but then you would still have to wait for your primary to fail/timeout

I'm going to assume you may not be that familiar with DNS servers, please excuse if it sounds patronising...

If you are running Linux/FreeBSD or, say, Mac OS X, it is (relatively) easy to set up your own "caching resolver". This is not really a DNS server, you just use it like you would use your ISP's DNS servers, for resolving (looking up) DNS names. It doesn't store any of its own names (which your ISP's servers would do). The advantage of this system over your ISP's system is: You are the only user of the system, so it will remain working as long as you internet connection is working.

You would usually set it up to talk directly to the root name servers (the servers responsible storing the records of servers responsible for names under the top levels such as "com", "net", "org", "za", "nz", "kr"). Effectively, what this then does is bypass your ISP whenever you do a DNS lookup.

There is an implication for doing this: You no longer benefit from any caching your ISP may have of thousands of DNS records, since your cache is now stored locally.

However, any subsequent requests to websites you frequent will have extremely low latency for the DNS lookup, subjectively improving the "speed of page load", since there's no back and forth with your ISP's DNS servers.

It is also possible to configure your "caching resolver" to be in a "forward-only" mode. This means that it is just another level of cache between you and your ISP's DNS servers, but the reason I don't do that is because that still relies on your ISP's servers working. Some people regard accessing root servers directly as poor form, but I really don't see myself as having any other option.

Commonly used "caching resolvers":

BIND
http://www.isc.org/index.pl?/sw/bind/

DNSCACHE (part of DJBDNS, my favourite, but hard to configure perhaps)
http://cr.yp.to/djbdns.html

If you are on a Windows platform, however, I am not sure what your options are.

cyril7

9058 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified

Trusted

Subscriber

#58601 23-Jan-2007 14:37

Windows 2000/XP and Server2003 have a built in DNS cache that by default will keep all postive (ie correctly found DNS's) for 24hrs, negative ones (ie resolved addresses that did not respond when requested) for 5min. to see whats in the cache issue the following command. "ipconfig /displaydns".

I have noted that I have much fewer problems when using my XP machines for the above reason, however it becomes painfully obvious that there is an issue when I use my 98SE machines. This is probably the reason that xtra's help desk has not been flooded with faults on this matter, it quite simply is masked to some extent by the cache.

Cyril

Equinox IT

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Shin

274 posts

Ultimate Geek

#58610 23-Jan-2007 14:53

bitserf: Hi Shin,

Your issue then would be the latency between New Zealand and Korea, and if your ISP's international link goes down, so does your DNS, unless its as a pure backup, but then you would still have to wait for your primary to fail/timeout

Hi bitserf,

the list i supplied was purely for backup purpose(as my previous post wished) when xtra user got DNS problems.

I had same problem before and if I had list of public DNS(or resolver as your finite term), I might still get connected.

So, just copy them into text file around desktop for emergency, still better than nothing isn't it.

juha

1317 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#58614 23-Jan-2007 15:44

OK, heard back from Xtra on this, through spokeswoman Lenska Papich:

We have not experienced any issues with our DNS servers in recent times.
There are a number of factors that may influence a person's ability to load web pages. We recommend that customers experiencing any difficulties contact our help desk with specific details including the website and time and date of the issue.

The Geekzone thread in question also dates back to 22 Dec - at this time there was an external issue with a US network provider which affected all New Zealand ISPs for a short duration.

Also, talked to a network techie who says the DNS cache in many DSL routers can be pretty dodgy. If that's the case, it may be worthwhile to upgrade the firmware in your router to a new variant which with any luck has sorted out the problem. Usual caveats about "if you don't know what you're doing, don't play around with firmware upgrades" apply. :)

Juha

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