On Tue, 28 Mar 2000 17:27:47 -0800, you wrote:
Well you learn something new every day :-)
Thanks for that.
Is there a danger that some ISPs DNS servers may redirect your
requests through their own proxy servers ???
There are reports in the UK that some ISPs are doing this partly to
boost apparent performance but also to filter access to some sites.
Personaly, I have found that the proxys on some ISPs is good but on my
current ISP it is dreadfully slow, so am keen to avoid it.
>> >As a general question --- what is ment by the "top level dns server"
>> >??? I assume this means the general internet dns server.
>> >
>> >How is the "top level dns server" identified ??? does it have a "well
>> >known" address ??
>>
>> AKA the "root" nameservers. There are 13 of them, named A.ROOT-SERVERS.NET through
>M.ROOT-SERVERS.NET. They can be found in the cache file pointed to in most any Unix
>box' /etc/named.boot file. In our case with STN, it's named.ca in the directory
>mentioned on a previous line, /etc/named (so the file is /etc/named/named.ca).
>>
>> They are *fairly* well defined, but they do change once in a while.
>>
>> I just checked, and the ftp site mentioned in STN's copy of named.ca has the same
>file, so our STN (2.1.3 anyway) is up to date root-server wise (last update 22 AUG
>1997).
>>
>> The STN docs mention your own ISP's nameserver is generally a faster response,
>which makes sense as it's closer (less hops). The exception might be an ISP's poorly
>maintained DNS server/network. The way DNS works, if the ISP's server you enter
>fails to respond, after a delay (not sure how long), it will begin trying the root
>nameservers in named.ca.
>>
>> I.e. (for network geeks), the entry in this field is entered in the named.boot file
>as a forwarder, which is the server tried before those in the root cache file
>(named.ca on STN). The named.ca root servers will be the next in line if it fails.
>>
>> pjb
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