DNS Based Load Balancers

Patrick W. Gilmore patrick at ianai.net
Sun Jul 2 16:26:58 UTC 2006


On Jul 1, 2006, at 2:53 PM, Paul Vixie wrote:

>> I'm soliciting recommendations for DNS based load balancers.
>
> my recommendation is: "don't do it."  for background, see:
>
> http://www.ops.ietf.org/lists/namedroppers/namedroppers.2002/ 
> msg02168.html
> http://www.cctec.com/maillists/nanog/current/msg03572.html
> http://www.cctec.com/maillists/nanog/current/msg00671.html

In the above posts, you claim it is a protocol violation.  Would you  
mind pointing out exactly which part of the protocol has been  
violated?  Specifically, I do not see where "offering back a  
different rrset based on criteria like source ip address ... is a  
protocol violation" [quote from Paul Vixie, second URL above]  
violates the protocol.  However, I do admit you know more about the  
protocol than I do, so could you please educate us?

Also, I note that "Stupid DNS tricks" have been in use for at least a  
decade now and seem to work just fine.  A significant fraction of  
Internet traffic is based on these "tricks", so it can't be  
horrifically bad.  Of course, the 'Net is resilient, so the fact  
"doing X has not killed the Internet" does not prove X is good.   
However,
Paul saying X is bad" does not prove X is bad either.  So let's have  
the logic behind your statement that these tricks are somehow bad for  
the Internet.

One strong way to say things are bad is if everyone did it, it would  
take down the Internet.  I submit that the Internet would not die if  
everyone did this.  I also submit it is better than relying on BGP to  
load balance.  If you care to argue any of those points, I'll be  
happy to explain my reasoning.  Otherwise, I think the onus is on you  
to support your claim.

-- 
TTFN,
patrick



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