Authoritative Resources for Public DNS Pinging

Fri Feb 11 15:18:03 UTC 2022

Huh

-- 

J. Hellenthal

The fact that there's a highway to Hell but only a stairway to Heaven says a lot about anticipated traffic volume.

> On Feb 11, 2022, at 09:10, Tom Beecher <beecher at beecher.cc> wrote:
> 
> I am disappointed but not surprised to see this discussion on NANOG. Encouraging Users to use a tool (that is often ignored by the hardware targeted) by providing a non-revenue-creating special target does not make business sense.
> 
> To be fair, I don't think this is unique to this community. Plenty of conversations on the IETF lists that are fundamentally the same. ( Proposals to change X or implement standard Y to solve something that is already solvable with current tech and standards. ) Really it's just the complexity of the existing solution that's different. :) 
> 
> On Fri, Feb 11, 2022 at 9:51 AM james.cutler at consultant.com <james.cutler at consultant.com> wrote:
> On Feb 11, 2022, at 8:33 AM, Tom Beecher <beecher at beecher.cc> wrote:
>> 
>> The prediciate assumption that "pinging one destination is a valid check that my internet works' is INCORRECT. There is no magical unicorn that could be built that could make that true, and 'they're gonna do it anyways' is a poor excuse to even consider it. 
>> 
> 
> The predicate assumption that unsuccessful pinging one destination is a valid check that my internet DOES NOT work' is  ALSO INCORRECT. Still no magical unicorn. 
> 
> I am disappointed but not surprised to see this discussion on NANOG. Encouraging Users to use a tool (that is often ignored by the hardware targeted) by providing a non-revenue-creating special target does not make business sense.
> 
> An allied issue is educating ‘Users’ about traceroute AKA sequential ping with TTL progression:
> 
> 	•  Seeing missing or excessively long traceroute results from intermediate nodes does NOT indicate a real problem, especially when the target node is reachable with acceptable delay. 
> 
> I’ve lost count of my replies on user forums explaining this issue, even to otherwise well educated users. 
> 
> To be blunt, browsing to amazon.com, apple.com or another vendor site is a simple and easy to teach Internet aliveness check and, at least, offers the chance for the targeted vendor site to receive revenue from sales. I have no crisis of conscience from clicking an vendor shortcut for a basic end-to-end Internet functional test. Or for teaching a User to do the same. This meets the business purpose locally and requires no $pecial effort from Users, network providers, or target systems. This precludes memorization of IP addresses by end Users thus reducing the offered load from the likes of excessive ping 8.8.8.8. 
> 
> I would expect NANOG members to have favorite ping target addresses based on their environment, e.g., default router and a few designated targets. These are useful for manual debugging but, as mentioned previously, are not suitable as singular input to network monitoring.