Setting up a Root name server

[chris]

Cricket Liu wrote:

> 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'm going to add my internal root server to the hint file. I will leave all the
other root name servers in there as well, since the RTT on my server should be
better then all the rest the resolvers will automatically use 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 this will work I have the OK for 2gig of ram for this server.


>
>
> 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.
>

Welp, I'm in the ISI building, drop me an e-mail and we can talk about it, I
really think this will speed things up. My CTO thought it was a great idea, I'm
just having one hell of a time fighting back the lack of information in this
area....


- Chris