Sentech DNS Servers/Cache Any Good

[loosecannon]

i have always run my own DNS server on my gateway mostly to be able to fiddle DNS as i wish now our friends at sentech and there useless international bandwidth cause me dns errors on regular basis [this morning i was down till +/-12]....

what i have done is in ip-up got it to load sentechs DNS servers [ala usepeerdns] as forwarders in my named.conf this has eliminated some problems already but is it a good thing to do ... are there servers good caches ... im worried that if they dont know how to set up a netcache [with web interface] can they run DNS ??

here is the snipet out of ip-up for those intrested

if [ "$USEPEERDNS" == "1" ] && [ "$DNS1" ];then
if [ "$DNS2" ];then
FWD="${DNS1};${DNS2}";
else
FWD=${DNS1}
fi;
sed -e "s/^#FWD/ forwarders \{$FWD;\};/" /etc/named.conf.orig > /etc/named.conf
fi;
rndc reload

 

[regardtv]

From what I've seen their DNS server's don't seem to be doing too much in the way of caching. I've extended the caching timeouts on my bind config.

Also look at adding IS/UUNET primary DNS's for named caching

 

[guest2013-1]

Wha? What you guys on about? Tell me toooo!

Help save the bandwidth. Decent download speeds for TheRodent! Stop downloading now!!!

 

[loosecannon]

ta thx for the info ... ill play arround some more ...

 

[loosecannon]

well they are farqed ... if they were configured correctly this would not happen ...

quick tip when your international plays up ensure your dns servers have at least your peers dns servers listed to prevent service failure ... ill set it up for a price [excluding the rebate for loss of service]

host www.cnn.com 66.18.68.1
Using domain server:
Name: 66.18.68.1
Address: 66.18.68.1#53
Aliases:

Host www.cnn.com not found: 2(SERVFAIL)
firewall:~# host www.cnn.com
www.cnn.com is an alias for cnn.com.
cnn.com has address 64.236.24.12
cnn.com has address 64.236.24.20
cnn.com has address 64.236.24.28
cnn.com has address 64.236.16.20
cnn.com has address 64.236.16.52
cnn.com has address 64.236.16.84
cnn.com has address 64.236.16.116
cnn.com has address 64.236.24.4

 

[bHOLDher]

What is IS's DNS server(s)' IP(s)? Won't it help setting their DNS server as a secondary DNS server on our IP settings? Surely their info will be more reliable?

BTW, our office has a line or two directly to IS. One day I phone our guy in the know, since I cannot get to our servers and websites. He tests it from home, and it works. (I feel stoopid). This was one of the many previous times that Upstream Provider CC had an international issue.

Our website ends with .com, we have another site with .co.za. .co.za works, .com not. Is this not only a DNS issue?

I think Upstream Provider is an alias for Sentech.

 

[loosecannon]

apollo.is.co.za has address 196.4.160.2
zeus.is.co.za has address 168.210.248.2
falcon.mweb.co.za has address 196.2.16.3
hurricane.mweb.co.za has address 196.2.45.101
igubu.saix.net has address 196.25.1.1
sangoma.saix.net has address 196.25.1.9
ns1/ns2 netactive.co.za/datapro.co.za/tiscali.co.za

not all servers allow recursion ...

the root co.za servers are
ns0.coza.net.za. 604513 IN A 206.223.136.195
ns0.plig.net. 311 IN A 195.40.6.40
ns1.coza.net.za. 604598 IN A 66.139.79.204
ns2.coza.net.za. 604599 IN A 160.124.16.145
ns4.iafrica.com. 3942 IN A 196.7.142.131
ns0.is.co.za has address 196.4.160.17

 

[bHOLDher]

Cool, thanks, Hmmm, now to see if this will even help, since, technically the sentech DNS servers are still "working" - they are just useless.

 

[bHOLDher]

My humble apologies to Sentech for thinking that Telkom's lines are Sentech's problem. - Our office also had issues with international connections.