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In theory, the design of IPv6 was such that the upper-level end-to-end transport protocols, namely TCP and UDP need not be aware of the IP layer protocol being used. We should be able to use IPv4 and IPv6 interchangeably in the DNS right? This topic was the subject of an…
There have been a number of services that allow a lookup of an IP address or Autonomous System Number (ASN) and return information about that IP number resource. The Regional Internet Registries (RIRs) each operate a database that records (among other data items) the number resource and the details of…
The 91st meeting of the RIPE community was held in Bucharest in October this year. It was a busy week and, as usual, there were presentations on a wide variety of topics, including routing, the DNS, network operations, security, measurement and address policies. The following are some notes on presentations…
Background The arrangements regarding the composition and organisation of the provision and operation of authoritative root servers are one of the more long-lasting aspects of the public Internet. In the late 1980’s, Jon Postel, as the IANA, worked with a small set of interested organisations to provide this service. It…
The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) meets three times a year to work on Internet Standards and related operational practice documents. In July of 2025 the IETF met in Madrid (finally, and only after a number of thwarted mis-starts!) with more than a thousand folk in attendance through the week.…
There has been a major change in the landscape of the internet over the past few years with the progressive introduction of the QUIC transport protocol. Here I’d like to look at where we are up to with the deployment of QUIC on the public Internet. But first, a review…
One of the more active areas of activity at the IETF falls under the remit of the DNS Operations Working Group. It’s an operational Working Group rather than a protocol development working group, but nevertheless the DNS is a very rich topic area with much to talk about. There is…
The Internet’s Domain Name System (DNS) is a remarkably simple system. You send queries into this system via a call to your local host’s name resolution library, and you get back answers. If you peek into the DNS system you’ll see exactly the same simplicity: The DNS resolver that receives…
The DNS Operations, Analysis, and Research Center (DNS-OARC) brings together DNS service operators, DNS software implementors, and researchers together to share concerns, information and learn together about the operation and evolution of the DNS. They meet between two to three times a year in a workshops format. The most recent…
Last year, in December, I looked at the behaviour of DNS recursive resolvers from the perspective of optimising performance and resilience of name resolution (). When given a choice of nameservers to use to query for a particular name within a domain will the resolver try to make an “optimal”…
