Root Zone Changed

An anonymous reader writes "The day before yesterday the root zone was silently changed for the first time in 5 years. The change was to J.ROOT-SERVERS.NET that is now managed by Verisign. The usual sites don't breathe a word about this change however as one would expect for such a change to be properly announced. An interesing sidenote is this thread on the IETF discussion list." the_proton writes "The server j.root-servers.net has changed IP address to 192.58.128.30. The new root zone hints can be grabbed from ftp://rs.internic.net/domain/named.root or ftp://ftp.internic.net/domain/named.root. The new zone serial number is 2002110501."

Comments

It was announced on NANOG.....

[dannyp]

....the day before. See the message. Granted not much warning, but it wasn't silent.

Re:It was announced on NANOG.....

[l1_wulf]

As it has been pointed out further down (for those of us that sort by score), this is truly a non-event and makes no significant impact on the typical /. reader. I will not take credit for the following information, but will quote someone that I think summed up the situation enough to hopefully keep the average Joe from /.ing any of the links posted in the article above. ccandreva posted

This is not a change that needs to be done immediately. For one thing, there are 13 (A - M) root servers. As long as your name server can contact one of them, it will download the latest list at start-up, so your root file can be fairly out of date, and still be fine when running. Also, the announcement says that the server will respond on both IP addresses "for the forseeable future".

Essentially, unless you know specifically that you are directly affected by this change, and can explain in detail why exactly you need this information right now, there is no need to /. any of the links above. If you run a linux box and keep your builds rather current, then I can assure you that there is no need to update. Think about it, the last change was 5 years ago, there should not be a major rush to update for the majority of us.

Re:Why should we care?

[nelsonal]

The root servers are the master list of domain names for the Internet. The computers still use IP addresses to talk, but us Humans prefer remembering slashdot.org to 66.35.250.150. In meatspace terms, I think this is along the lines of a construction company changing the composition of their concrete for use on the Highway system, you might not notice the change as a user, but it could be a bad decision.
All I want to know is if Sun is back to being the . in .com? :)

This doesn't matter. Really.

[toastyman]

To quote Sean Donelan's post on NANOG:

Since its been 5 years since the hints/cache boot file has changed,
it may be useful to remind people an immediate change to your
local configuration files is not required. You don't need to
slashdot internic.net tomorrow morning trying to download the file.

As long as 1 listed IP address responds with the current list of root
servers, the server doesn't even need to be a root server itself, your
name server should figure out who are the current roots. In the 1980's
and 1990's when the hints/cache file changed regularly, some people when
years without updating it. Or only updated it when they upgraded their
name server code.

Don't Panic.

To sum up: You don't need to change anything. As long as one of the 13 servers in your hints/cache file responds, your name server will download the updated list on startup. You only have to worry if you've put off updating it so long that all 13 servers have changed IP's. Pretty unlikely, since that would be a hints file that's more than 10 years old at least. (You're not running Linux, anyway...)

And no, this isn't verisign-causing-instability-as-usual. They're actually trying to help it. Before this change, both a.root-servers.net and j.root-servers.net were in the same /24 and in the same BGP annoucement. They're moving things around a bit(presumably) to increase reliability and redundancy.

Anyone that cares...

[pirodude]

Anyone that cares and needs to know about it was properly notified. There was a post to NANOG 3 days ago about it:

*****PLEASE NOTE*****
This is an important Informational Message to the internet community:

November 5, 2002, the IP address for J.root-servers.net will
change in the authoritative NS set for "dot". The change will
be reflected in zone serial # 2002110501.

The new set of servers authoritative for "dot" will be:
A.ROOT-SERVERS.NET. 5w6d16h IN A 198.41.0.4
H.ROOT-SERVERS.NET. 5w6d16h IN A 128.63.2.53
C.ROOT-SERVERS.NET. 5w6d16h IN A 192.33.4.12
G.ROOT-SERVERS.NET. 5w6d16h IN A 192.112.36.4
F.ROOT-SERVERS.NET. 5w6d16h IN A 192.5.5.241
B.ROOT-SERVERS.NET. 5w6d16h IN A 128.9.0.107
J.ROOT-SERVERS.NET. 5w6d16h IN A 192.58.128.30
K.ROOT-SERVERS.NET. 5w6d16h IN A 193.0.14.129
L.ROOT-SERVERS.NET. 5w6d16h IN A 198.32.64.12
M.ROOT-SERVERS.NET. 5w6d16h IN A 202.12.27.33
I.ROOT-SERVERS.NET. 5w6d16h IN A 192.36.148.17
E.ROOT-SERVERS.NET. 5w6d16h IN A 192.203.230.10
D.ROOT-SERVERS.NET. 5w6d16h IN A 128.8.10.90

This WILL require a change to your root hints file. The new
file will be available via anonymous ftp from
rs.internic.net:/domain/named.root as well as
ftp.internic.net:/doamin/named.root starting 11/5/02 1700UTC (12pm
EST/9am PST).

Both the new and old j.root-servers.net IP space will provide
answers in parallel for the foreseeable future.

_________________________________________

John Crain
Manager of Technical Operations
ICANN/IANA

crain@icann.org
1AF4 F638 4B2D 3EF2 F9BA 99E4 8D85 69A7

Re:Anyone that cares...

[Tony Hoyle]

Oops (don't try that at home kids...)

# dig @a.root-servers.net . ns >/etc/bind/db.root

Re:Why should we care?

[a ( h 3 r 0 n]

The root zones are where are all top-level DNS queries start. Think of the internet domain system as one giant honkin' tree. The root servers at the top manage domain information for the top level zones, and they pass off queries down the tree until the query hits an authoritative DNS server for the domain in question.

This affects administrators of DNS servers, because in the DNS config is a list of the IP addresses where these root servers can be found.

Why should you care? You probably don't. It doesn't affect you directly. That is, unless all the root servers mysteriously die one day. That would make surfing for your pr0n a thing of near impossibility. :)

stupid tagline

[GigsVT]

"Causing instability as usual"?

You only need one root server, there are 12 others. In fact, it safe to just wait until the next time you upgrade BIND or your operating system... running an out of date file won't hurt anything.

There was no reason to announce anything here. This is really a non-event.

Re:Thanks Micheal, you're gonna /.

[br0ck]

Oddly, the reply to the NANOG post about the change encourages people to hold off on downloding the hints file to prevent Slashdotting internic.net since. The reply claims that the update is not at all critical.

Getting root.hints

[image]

> The new root zone hints can be grabbed from ftp://rs.internic.net/domain/named.root or ftp://ftp.internic.net/domain/named.root.

For those running bind, you may want to try this instead:

dig @e.root-servers.net . ns > root.hints

It will generate the root list automatically, ready for you to drop into /var/named/ (or wherever you installed it).

Not that big a deal

[ccandreva]

This post is leaving out some details that were brought up on the NANOG mailing list.

This is not a change that needs to be done immediately. For one thing, there are 13 (A - M) root servers. As long as your name server can contact one of them, it will download the latest list at start-up, so your root file can be fairly out of date, and still be fine when running.

Also, the announcement says that the server will respond on both IP addresses "for the forseeable future".

This isn't a question of flipping a switch and everyone having to update their servers at once. A big public announcement would probably just have confused most users for no good reason.

Re:Why should we care?

[KieranElby]

> Maybe someone could explain to us newbies how this affects the operation of the Internet.

Ok.

Here's the usual (much simplified) explanation for how DNS (that is, maping hostnames to IP addresses) works:

Let's assume we want to connect to www.slashdot.org. We need to know it's IP address in order to do this.

What we do is:

1) Ask one of the 13 root servers which server handles .org domains.

2) Ask that server which server handles the slashdot.org domain.

3)Ask that server which server handles the www.slashdot.org zone.

However, this begs the question:

"Where do the root servers get their info. from?"

Well, as of yesterday they're getting it from 192.58.128.30.

To some extent, 192.58.128.30 is now the most important address on the internet since it is the highest authority for the rather important business of looking up addresses.

j.root-servers.net did not change hands.

[winnetou]

j.root-servers.net was 198.41.0.10 in 198.41.0.0/22, owned by VeriSign Global Registry Services.
j.root-servers.net is 192.58.128.30 now, in 192.58.128.0/24, owned by VeriSign Global Registry Services.
Having both a and j in the same netblock was not a good idea (remember what happened to Microsoft when they had all nameservers in the same netblock?).
See ARIN and ARIN again.

Re:Why should we care?

[Anonymous Coward]

Not exactly. The question is actually "how do we find the root servers to ask them who handles .org" aka, "how do we find out who handles '.'".

The answer is to keep a list of the 13 root servers' IPs on disk, in a file called (appropriately enough) "root.hints".

J is *one* of the root servers, and it has changed its IP. Therefore at some point people should update their root.hints files to reflect this change.

There's no hurry, because the other 12 haven't moved, and over time the update will tend to happen without any special help as you upgrade your DNS install, etc.

It doesn't matter anyways...

[GLX]

When the change was announced, they noted specifically that the current J.ROOT-SERVERS.NET will stay in existance with it's current IP (just no direct DNS entry) and the new one has been moved to a different IP block for DoS protection... The current one will exist for awhile to come.

This isn't really news...

Re:Too many moves, too many critical paths

[valdis]

Quite correct - there's only a little bit of procedurally/technically fiddly about it.

Your average root nameserver gets hit for about 100M queries per day (or on the order of 1,500 per second). See http://www.caida.org/~kkeys/dns/ for details. A root nameserver is expected to get pounded on by *mostly* invalid queries (see http://www.nanog.org/mtg-0210/wessels.html). The Wessels data was *normal production* workload, not during a DDoS.

All the usual considerations regarding BGP multihoming and hardware redundancy apply. There's reasons why the servers are Sun E10K or large IBM boxes or similar big iron, and why people who have just a T-1 from Barney's ISP, Bait, and Tackle Shop need not apply.

Of course, there's nothing in the above that can't be solved by applying clue and dollars. However...

Ever priced a E10K? And noticed that most of the root nameservers are basically donated by their hosts? That's where the politically fiddly comes in - the number of places that are clued enough to run a root DNS, network connected well enough to be worth it, and willing to donate the resources to do it, is a lot smaller than you might expect...

For DjbDNS users

[chrysalis]

You must put this in your /etc/dnscache/root/servers/@ file :

128.63.2.53
128.8.10.90
128.9.0.107
192.112.3 6.4
192.203.230.10
192.33.4.12
192.36.148.17
1 92.5.5.241
192.58.128.30
193.0.14.129
198.32.64 .12
198.41.0.4
202.12.27.33

Re:Why should we care?

[Strog]

A.ROOT-SERVERS.NET is considered the ultimate authority in DNS. It is also called "dot" and used to be a healthy Sun box. So they really were the "dot" in .com in a sense and that's what made it so funny. That box was replaced with an IBM box and now IBM could say they are the "dot" in .com.

Link here

Re:Why should we care?

[br0ck]

I think your suspicion has been confirmed by a this recent New Scientist article. It says one of the Versign root servers was actually moved to a new location so that two servers wouldn't be relying on the same infrastructure. It does not mention the IP change, but it seems to make sense.

Almost but not quite...

[AndroidCat]

In the same way that requests go down the tree to find the server, requests go up the tree to the root servers. (Up the tree to the roots, hmm!)

If your immediate DNS handled a request for slashdot.org two seconds previously, it should still be cached -- no need to bother a root server over that. Any request would have go up several levels before a root server would be bothered with it. (Otherwise they'd be continually /.'ed :^)

The root servers could all disappear without a lot of disruption, but only for a short time until the cache entries started timing out.

My backup plan is to toss the entire name space into my local hosts file. I've already got DoubleClick in there for testing. :^)