Here are the first results of our DNS transfer size measurements. We are interested to determine any possible problems for users of K-root once it starts giving DNSSEC responses to resolvers that request them. DNSSEC responses are significantly larger than current responses. We are interested to learn if these larger responses would reach the resolvers.

The recent allocation of the 1.0.0.0/8 and 27.0.0.0/8 not only triggered a lot of media attention due to IPv4 exhaustion exceding the 90% mark, it also sparked the curiosity of many technical folks. Specifically the NANOG mailing list triggered quite a lively discussion about the allocation of 1.0.0.0/8 (http://mailman.nanog.org/pipermail/nanog/2010-January/017402.html).

 
History
 

1.0.0.0/8 (1/8) was reserved by IANA since 1981. Since then is has been used unofficially as example addresses, default configuration parameters or pseudo-private address space.

Yesterday, we released a newer version of the reply-size test tool. We took feedback from users, and made some changes to the tool. In this newer version, you will now see a drop-down list of all the resolvers that are configured on your system, and you can select one of these to test. You can also enter an IP address of your choice to test.

Additionally, we made some of the error messages a bit clearer, so that if the tool fails to run properly on a system, it will say so, and point the user to alternative ways to test.

Finally, we also added a note about the difference between the buffer size that a resolver announces, and what the tool measures.

This new version is available here: replysizetest-1.1.jar (MD5 checksum 420bddc70a60c5c93a0d33185a5a3caf)

You probably heard it before: "This year is going to be the year IPv6 takes off". You probably won't hear it that much more, because with the imminent IPv4 address space exhaustion either IPv6 needs to be deployed, we figure out something else, or we'll face stagnation of growth of the Internet. There isn't too much time to figure out something else so that bodes well for IPv6 deployment. And fortunately there are some encouraging signs of progress.

REX has been supporting queries on IPv6 addresses for a couple of weeks already. Some inquisitive users have already found out. Let us explore this new feature briefly. First let's enter the IPv6 address of k.root-servers.net, 2001:7fd::1, in the query form at

albatross.ripe.net/cgi-bin/rex.pl. As expected we will see that AS25152, the K-root AS, has been announcing a /32 since before the start of the query interval. We will also see some sporadic /48 announcements. When did these announcements start? Here another new feature comes in handy, the time slider:

The green interval represents the boundaries of the current results. If we want to query for a different interval, we can draw its boundaries to the desired start and end times. Let's draw the start interval to the start of the year 2007:

Some weeks ago, we installed a reply-size tester application at the global instances of K-root. Anyone using a unix-like system can use a command-line DNS query tool such as dig to run a special query, which will make use of this reply-size tester to try and determine the maximum size of a DNS response packet a resolver can handle.

The increased deployment of IPv6 that has accompanied the exhaustion of the free IPv4 address pool has encouraged a wide range of organisations and individuals to conduct measurements related to IPv6 data and traffic. These studies range from analyses of IPv6 take-up per country and per organisation, to technical examinations of the performance of IPv6-enabled websites.

Earlier this year, ICANN and VeriSign announced plans to sign the DNS root zone, using DNSSEC. DNSSEC is a set of extensions to the DNS protocol which allow one to digitally sign the records in a zone and allow a client to verify the authenticity of these records.

Our Resource Explainer, REX for short, is a one-stop-shop for almost all the information you ever wanted to know about Internet number resources. It provides you with an all-inclusive, detailed report about the resources you're interested in. It will provide you with current and historical information from a number of perspectives.  If you want to find out everything about an Internet number resource - REX is the service to try!

The current version (v0.1) knows only about IPv4 address space. We went for the most difficult part first. ASNs and IPv6 address space will follow.

If you're impatient and would like to jump to the tool immediately then go ahead, check it out now!

Inside the RIPE NCC Science Group cauldron we've been cooking something really tasty for a while now - the ultimate number resource database. Inside it one can find many historical data sets from the RIPE NCC and other entities. We've already been using this database for internal purposes such as the Registration Data Quality measurements, and from now on you too can see more and more services based on this technology. Let us give you a demonstration.