InterNIC - We put the "I" in incompetent.

Michael Dillon michael at memra.com
Sun Mar 14 20:34:56 UTC 1999


On Sun, 14 Mar 1999, I Am Not An Isp wrote:

> >Nothing except community consensus that it is a *BAD* thing to pollute the
> >global routing table with lots of long prefixes.
> 
> I am capable of putting /32s in my network an announcing the aggregate.  We
> did this at Priori, Michael.  Justin programmed each loopback as a /32 out
> of the same /24, so we had x.x.x.1 on the west coast and x.x.x.2 on the
> east coast, but still only announced the /18.

Most of the people on this list do not operate a national backbone. This
aggregation technique is just fine if you really do have geographical
diversity of nameserver location inside your AS. I'm not sure why anyone
would go to the trouble of making it appear that their nameservers are in
the same room when they are not. Priori had nameservers at PAIX and at
Erols in Fairfax County, VA. 

But if a network does not have geographical diversity inside their AS then
all of this /32 aggregation magic is for naught. If national backbones
look like this:

   NS0.VERIO.NET                205.238.52.46
   NS1.VERIO.NET                204.91.99.140

   NS1.SPRINTLINK.NET           204.117.214.10
   NS2.SPRINTLINK.NET           199.2.252.9
   NS3.SPRINTLINK.NET           204.97.212.10

   NS.CW.NET                    204.70.128.1
   NS2.CW.NET                   204.70.57.242
   NS3.CW.NET                   204.70.25.234
   NS4.CW.NET                   204.70.49.234

then why wouldn't all ISPs look like this?

   NS1.EXAMPLE.COM              192.0.2.17
   NS2.EXAMPLE.COM              204.97.212.10
   NS3.EXAMPLE.COM              205.91.99.140

instead of the minimalist slapdash technique

   NS1.EXAMPLE.COM              192.0.2.44
   NS2.EXAMPLE.COM              192.0.2.45

It's not hard to find an ISP in another state or another country to trade
secondary DNS. And when the backhoe cuts a major fiber link in your area
used by all three of your upstream providers, the world will know that you
still exist. If you use the minimalist slapdash technique the world will
think that you've gone out of business.

--
Michael Dillon                 -               E-mail: michael at memra.com
Check the website for my Internet World articles -  http://www.memra.com        






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