On 2/11/22 16:58, Jon Lewis wrote:
I have to admit, I haven't read most of this thread, but I am well
aware of the issues with both end users and "routers" / firewalls
pinging 8.8.8.8 as a means of verifying "that path to the Internet is
working". I know GOOG doesn't appreciate the amount of ICMP echo
requests their 8.8.8.8 instances receive, and that at various
times/places, that ICMP traffic is/has been policed by GOOG.
So...here's a pair of "what if"s:
What if instead of pinging 8.8.8.8, all these things using it to "test
the Internet" sent it DNS requests instead? i.e.
GOOG=$(dig +short @8.8.8.8 google.com)
if [ -z "$GOOG" ] ; then
echo FAIL
fi Would that make things better or worse for GOOG (Trading lots more
DNS requests for the ICMP echo requests)?
Could work for devices, but more difficult for Jane.
8.8.8.8 is already anycasted. What if each large ISP (for whatever
definition of large floats your boat) setup their own internal
instance(s) of 8.8.8.8 with a caching DNS server listening, and
handled the traffic without bothering GOOG? For users using 8.8.8.8
as a lighthouse, this would change the meaning of their test...i.e. a
response means their connection to their ISP is up, and the ISP's
network works at least enough to reach an internal 8.8.8.8, but the
question of their connectivity to the rest of the Internet would be
unanswered.
Something tells me Google (or Cloudflare, or Quad9, or e.t.c.) would not
consider that a good thing, for them :-).
Mark.
