
4.2.2.2: The story behind a DNS legend - ab9
http://www.tummy.com/Community/Articles/famous-dns-server/
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tptacek
Instead of hunting for a public DNS server to use, you can just run your own.
djbdns, for instance, comes "out-of-the-box" with a working cache. This puts
some marginal extra load on the DNS roots, and so it's probably not a great
idea for Microsoft to build it in as the Windows 7 default, but it's perfectly
fine for one-offs.

In some limited testing, I find Google to be faster than 4.2.2.2, both to be
faster than OpenDNS (which you shouldn't use, because they suppress NXDOMAIN),
a local cache to be competitive with OpenDNS, and all of these options to be
faster than AT&T's DNS, which is simply appalling.

(I test with nsping, which is a goofy program I wrote in the mid-'90s to test
the resolvers at an ISP I helped run).

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metachris
With OpenDNS you can enable or disable NXDOMAIN:
<http://www.opendns.com/support/article/312>

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fragmede
but only for a static ip. If you use OpenDNS on your laptop, and go use coffee
shop wifi, unless someone else has disabled NXDOMAIN from that IP, you will
get their NXDOMAIN landing/redirect page instead.

Which limits its usefulness to desktop systems on a static IP.

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Zak
_Your ISP's DNS servers are the best choice for use as your DNS servers._

In theory, yes. Your ISP is obligated to provide them, and they're probably
very close on the network. In practice, I've seen shockingly slow DNS on
fairly high-speed internet connections. Switching to 8.8.8.8 or 4.2.2.2 on
those connections drastically improved web browsing.

~~~
blhack
Another problem is that some ISP DNS servers will redirect you to one of their
landing pages when you mis-type a URL.

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jff
Time Warner occasionally sends me to their stupid "landing" page even if I get
the address correct. Their DNS service is definitely sub-par.

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wizard_2
I've used this for pinging for years when there are dns problems. If dns is
working I usually hit google or yahoo.

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tuacker
For everyone interested to change their DNS check out
<http://code.google.com/p/namebench/> For me 8.8.4.4 and others are faster and
work better then the one provided by my ISP, at least it feels that way.

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ck2
There is no way in heck I am giving Google all of my DNS requests on top of
email and adsense on every site I visit.

If we aren't supposed to be using 4.2.2.2 what's another option than 8.8.8.8
or opendns?

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retube
is there anything wrong/dubious with openDNS?

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lanstein
yes. see tptacek's comment.

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mike-cardwell
You can easily configure OpenDNS to work exactly like a normal resolver.

People always seem to forget this point.

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tedunangst
I didn't forget that I can login to OpenDNS and fix my settings every time my
IP changes, I just think it's ridiculous.

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ramchip
_John Hawkinson had set aside 4.2/16 ("under the label "Numerology" since he
had the wisdom to see that the numbers in themselves could be valuable")._

 _My opinion is that among the reasons it is so well known are that it was
designed from the very beginning to be memorable, and they folks setting up
this service had the foresight to realize that having it on an easy IP was
valuable._

I don't agree with the author's idea that an easy IP address is especially
valuable. They're not making any money when technicians use their service
because the IP is memorable...

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aw3c2
I am very very sure Google does use the data coming to their DNS for
statistical analysis etc. If it is your intend to see what people visit, DNS
is a highly valuable resource and an easy IP might make people use yours.

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jeff18
<http://code.google.com/speed/public-dns/faq.html#privacy>

If you are correct, there is a massive conspiracy at Google, where a single
whistleblower would be able to cost the company billions of dollars.

~~~
aw3c2
Not sure what you mean. I mean plainly logging the domain lookups, using the
data what the _masses_ do not tainting the privacy of the individual.

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known
I found my DNS servers at
<http://www.dnsserverlist.org/indexbeta.php?oby=Q_RTT>

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j00lz
I have been using 4.2.2.2 for years but did not realise others were until now.
It was the only IP I could remember from public dns servers list.

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nodogbite
I thought I was a nerd, but I must not be, because that was one of the least
interesting stories that I've ever read. I want my 3 minutes back.

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e1ven
To each their own, I suppose, but I enjoyed this story quite a bit. A bit like
the Fast inverse square root story, or the Control-Alt-Delete stories, it's
fun to see the origin of interesting and neat things, even if they are
somewhat predictable.

I've been using this server as a ping and DNS test for at least 5-6 years, so
it's great to hear more about it.

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kgermino
Do you have links to any of those other stories? (I'm thinking specifically of
the cntrl-alt-del story but anything else interesting would be neat)

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e1ven
<http://www.beyond3d.com/content/articles/8/>

<http://www.gannettonline.com/e/trends/18001162.html>

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kgermino
Great Thanks!

