Advisory — D-root is changing its IPv4 address on the 3rd of January.

Sun Dec 16 00:45:32 UTC 2012

On 15/12/2012 23:07, David Conrad wrote:
> The handwringing over this issue is a bit over the top.

It's a question of what's procedurally sensible.  Sensible things would
include longer notice of the impending change to the root zone, more
widespread notice of what's happening and generally not poking around with
really important bits of the Internet at times which are well known for
having configuration freezes and/or when many people are going to be on
holidays.  There are many bits of the internet where changes will only
affect small areas, but this change will affect everyone even if they
people don't realise it (and yes, it probably won't affect them visibly
because of root cache repriming).

Other sensible things might include:

- liaising with operating system vendors and recurser servers code authors
and providing them with extra advance notice so that they can roll these
changes into their code in a structured way.  Software update release
cycles often take many months to roll out, particularly for non OSS code.

- perhaps some targeted localisation of the d.root-servers.org notice so
that more than 15% of the world population can read it (english == 5%
native speakers, 10% second language)?

Lots of people are aware that resolver dns servers will automatically
reprime their root cache without manual intervention.  However, not
everyone will realise it and a random punter who looks at this notice and
doesn't understand root cache mechanics may well think that they need to
start updating their DNS configuration files on Jan 3.  It's not clear from
the change notification that you don't necessarily need to do this.

This change wasn't planned over a coffee last thursday morning.  It's
obviously been on the cards for several years, so asking for more carefully
structured notice in a procedurally sensible sort of way isn't an
unreasonable thing to expect as part of the migration plan.

Nick