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Authority server selection in DNS caching resolvers

Published: 29 March 2012 Publication History

Abstract

Operators of high-profile DNS zones utilize multiple authority servers for performance and robustness. We conducted a series of trace-driven measurements to understand how current caching resolver implementations distribute queries among a set of authority servers. Our results reveal areas for improvement in the ``apparently sound'' server selection schemes used by some popular implementations. In some cases, the selection schemes lead to sub-optimal behavior of caching resolvers, e.g. sending a significant amount of queries to unresponsive servers. We believe that most of these issues are caused by careless implementations, such as keeping decreasing a server's SRTT after the server has been selected, treating unresponsive servers as responsive ones, and using constant SRTT decaying factor. For the problems identified in this work, we recommended corresponding solutions.

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Published In

cover image ACM SIGCOMM Computer Communication Review
ACM SIGCOMM Computer Communication Review  Volume 42, Issue 2
April 2012
108 pages
ISSN:0146-4833
DOI:10.1145/2185376
Issue’s Table of Contents

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Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 29 March 2012
Published in SIGCOMM-CCR Volume 42, Issue 2

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Author Tags

  1. dns
  2. server selection

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  • (2023)Silence is not Golden: Disrupting the Load Balancing of Authoritative DNS ServersProceedings of the 2023 ACM SIGSAC Conference on Computer and Communications Security10.1145/3576915.3616647(296-310)Online publication date: 15-Nov-2023
  • (2023)Configuration anormaly detection and resolution risk assessment of authoritative domain name serverComputers & Security10.1016/j.cose.2023.103426135(103426)Online publication date: Dec-2023
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