New DNS resolvers

August 28th, 2013 by

We’ve upgraded our DNS resolvers in our SOV and HEX data centres. New features include DNSSEC validation and IPv6.

The addresses are,

SOV : 2a00:1098:0:80:1000::12 / 93.93.128.2
HEX : 2a00:1098:0:82:1000::10 / 93.93.130.2

They’re now DNSSEC aware and validating resolvers. That means if a site has correctly configured DNSSEC and we receive an answer that fails the security check we will return no answer rather than an incorrect/forged one.

To demonstrate the difference,

a non dns sec validating resolver :
# dig +short sigfail.verteiltesysteme.net
134.91.78.139

a mythic beasts server using our resolvers
# dig +short sigfail.verteiltesysteme.net
<no answer>
#

and on the DNS server it logs an error,

debug.log:28-Aug-2013 15:44:57.565 dnssec: info: validating @0x7fba880b69e0: sigfail.verteiltesysteme.net A: no valid signature found

and correctly drops the reply.

Googles DNS servers on 8.8.8.8 work the same as ours so we’re fairly confident that there will be no compatibility issues.