About this episode

This episode discusses the measurement of naming choices for the root servers of the global DNS with Willem Toorop.

In this episode of PING, we talk with Willem Toorop about a measurement of 6 choices for naming the root servers of the global DNS. This measurement was motivated by RSSAC 028, a 2017 technical analysis for ICANN of the naming scheme used by the root DNS servers. Root name servers are part of the global DNS system, and they provide basic bootstrapping for every other DNS resolver and authoritative name server worldwide. This is their primary role, but they also handle query load relating to the global DNS system all day and every day. There are 13 distinctly named root servers, each one identified by a letter from A to M under the domain root-servers.net. Although there are only 13 distinct "labels" there are in fact thousands of machines providing this service as independently operated clusters behind each of these letters, using the BGP "anycast" method we have discussed on PING before. The special zone, root servers.net was instantiated in 1995. It's delegated as normal under the .net zone, which in turn delegates from the root "dot" zone. If you are bootstrapping a new resolver, to find a root server you appear to need to know about the delegation of .net in order to find…

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