root-server trouble?

[Barry Margolin]

In article <Pine.LNX.4.10.9908202038320.26780-100000 at lilly.devconsult.de>,
Ingo Luetkebohle  <ingo at devconsult.de> wrote:
>That, in turn, prompts a question: Is it advisable to explicitly configure
>hints for com|net|org pointing to just some of the GTLD-servers (those that
>are in europe)? I can reach those with a RTT below 50ms, whereas everything
>else is between 100ms (US east coast) and 200ms (US west coast).

The root server hints file is just used as an initial hint.  One of the
first things that BIND does is send a query to one of those servers, asking
for the current list of root servers.  From then on it uses this list, not
the list in your file.

>My reasoning is that by using only the nearer servers, with their lower
>RTT, DNS lookup times are improved. However, I'm not sure if it would cause
>side-effects that I'm not aware of.

BIND already does this automatically.  Whenever it uses any server it
records the response time.  When it has a choice of servers for a zone
(including the root) it chooses the one with the best past response time.

-- 
Barry Margolin, barmar at bbnplanet.com
GTE Internetworking, Powered by BBN, Burlington, MA
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