Google Code Blog : A proposal to extend the DNS protocol
A proposal to extend the DNS protocol Wednesday, January 27, 2010 Today a group of DNS and content providers, including Neustar/UltraDNS and Google are publishing a proposal to extend the DNS protocol (http://www.ietf.org/id/draft-vandergaast-edns-client-ip-00.txt). DNS is the system that translates an easy-to-remember name like www.google.com to a numeric address like 74.125.45.104. These are the IP addresses that computers use to communicate with one another on the Internet. By returning different addresses to requests coming from different places, DNS can be used to load balance traffic and send users to a nearby server. For example, if you look up www.google.com from a computer in New York, it may resolve to an IP address pointing to a server in New York City. If you look up www.google.com from the Netherlands, the result could be an IP address pointing to a server in the Netherlands. Sending you to a nearby server improves speed, latency, and network utilization. Currently, to determine your location, authoritative nameservers look at the source IP address of the incoming request, which is the IP address of your DNS resolver, rather than your IP address. This DNS resolver is often managed by your ISP or alternately is a third-party resolver like Google Public DNS. In most cases the resolver is close to its users, in which case the authoritative nameservers will be able to find the nearest server. However, some DNS resolvers serve many users over a wider area. In these cases, your lookup for www.google.com may return the IP address of a server several countries away from you. If the authoritative nameserver could detect where you were, a closer server might have been available. Our proposed DNS protocol extension lets recursive DNS resolvers include part of your IP address in the request sent to authoritative nameservers. Only the first three octets, or top 24 bits, are sent providing enough information to the authoritative nameserver to determine your network location, without affecting your privacy. Read full article : http://googlecode.blogspot.com/2010/01/proposal-to-extend-dns-protocol.html
Very insightful comments already from some very alert folks. I am living with a DNS resolution hiccup right now. It is partially related to the DNS resolver_nameserver kerfuffle but equally at fault is the quality of the links between me and the nearest nameserver. I tend to agree that the extension proposed won't by itself do anything for link quality in the short term. At least not until the marketers figure out how to selectively incorporate the routing information to improve the response experience. Carlton Samuels ================================================================================= On Thu, Feb 4, 2010 at 4:57 PM, Dev Anand Teelucksingh <devtee@gmail.com>wrote:
A proposal to extend the DNS protocol Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Today a group of DNS and content providers, including Neustar/UltraDNS and Google are publishing a proposal to extend the DNS protocol (http://www.ietf.org/id/draft-vandergaast-edns-client-ip-00.txt).
DNS is the system that translates an easy-to-remember name like www.google.com to a numeric address like 74.125.45.104. These are the IP addresses that computers use to communicate with one another on the Internet.
By returning different addresses to requests coming from different places, DNS can be used to load balance traffic and send users to a nearby server. For example, if you look up www.google.com from a computer in New York, it may resolve to an IP address pointing to a server in New York City. If you look up www.google.com from the Netherlands, the result could be an IP address pointing to a server in the Netherlands. Sending you to a nearby server improves speed, latency, and network utilization.
Currently, to determine your location, authoritative nameservers look at the source IP address of the incoming request, which is the IP address of your DNS resolver, rather than your IP address. This DNS resolver is often managed by your ISP or alternately is a third-party resolver like Google Public DNS. In most cases the resolver is close to its users, in which case the authoritative nameservers will be able to find the nearest server. However, some DNS resolvers serve many users over a wider area. In these cases, your lookup for www.google.com may return the IP address of a server several countries away from you. If the authoritative nameserver could detect where you were, a closer server might have been available.
Our proposed DNS protocol extension lets recursive DNS resolvers include part of your IP address in the request sent to authoritative nameservers. Only the first three octets, or top 24 bits, are sent providing enough information to the authoritative nameserver to determine your network location, without affecting your privacy.
Read full article : http://googlecode.blogspot.com/2010/01/proposal-to-extend-dns-protocol.html
_______________________________________________ At-Large mailing list At-Large@atlarge-lists.icann.org
http://atlarge-lists.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/at-large_atlarge-lists.icann...
At-Large Official Site: http://atlarge.icann.org
-- +========+++++++++++++++====== Carlton A Samuels Education Technologies for Curriculum Development, ICT Policy, Internet Governance and Process Improvement
participants (2)
-
Carlton Samuels -
Dev Anand Teelucksingh