Slow DNS

[Kevin Darcy]

Boris S(avc wrote:

>I have a problem with my DNS. When I do ping from DNS server to outside IP
>address, everything is OK, but if I do ping www.google.com I get a slow
>ping. I've tried to do 'time host www.google.com' and I get various
>results, from 0,022 to 12,024...
>
>What could be the problem?
>
Well, www.google.com is not exactly a _normal_ DNS name. It's hosted on 
Akamai, which does all sort of "interesting" things as far as DNS 
resolution is concerned. Among which is a relatively low-valued TTL -- 5 
minutes -- on the www.google.akadns.net A records (to which 
www.google.com is aliased), which causes whatever nameserver(s) you're 
using to have to go re-fetch those records fairly often...

- Kevin