.mil domain root only hosted by one server??

Wed Aug 21 19:46:22 UTC 2002

I just stumbled across something I thought was interesting. All the .mil 
domain names used by the U.S. Military are served by one single root 
server. I thought that was a bit odd. I'm sure that one server is more than 
enough to handle the queries for all the .mil domains with no problem, but 
it doesn't seem very redundant or safe at all. Especially for something our 
military uses. There's something that could be beefed up a little bit. My 
other thought (which others may know) was that perhaps the military runs 
G.ROOT-SERVERS.NET and I'm just not aware of it. Maybe it's a policy to 
only run .mil on what they can control? Even still, I think it might be in 
their best interest to setup a few more.

These are the results I got when I queried A.ROOT-SERVERS.NET:

; <<>> DiG 9.2.1 <<>> @a.root-servers.net mil.
;; global options:  printcmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 41
;; flags: qr aa rd; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 0, AUTHORITY: 1, ADDITIONAL: 0

;; QUESTION SECTION:
;mil.                           IN      A

;; AUTHORITY SECTION:
mil.                    86400   IN      SOA     G.ROOT-SERVERS.NET. 
HOSTMASTER.N
IC.mil. 2002082000 3600 900 1209600 86400

;; Query time: 390 msec
;; SERVER: 198.41.0.4#53(a.root-servers.net)
;; WHEN: Wed Aug 21 15:38:58 2002
;; MSG SIZE  rcvd: 90

I'd like comments from anyone with more information on this. I'm just 
curious as to why it is this way and what the reasoning behind it is. Maybe 
I'll email hostmaster.nic.mil and ask. ;)

Vinny Abello
Network Engineer
Server Management
vinny at tellurian.com
(973)300-9211 x 125
(973)940-6125 (Direct)
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