Hi all. Can anyone recommend a modern alternative to "namebench <https://code.google.com/archive/p/namebench/>"? That's an old Google Summer of Code project that determines the best-responding DNS servers for any particular installation. Python 2 based, so it doesn't even run without mods on a modern Ubuntu system which defaults to Python 3. Also, it hasn't been updated since 2010 and certainly some of the more-popular public DNS servers have changed since then. What techniques or apps are used now to do this? Evan Leibovitch, Toronto Canada @evanleibovitch / @el56
On 02/11/2022 13.32, Evan Leibovitch via talk wrote:
Hi all.
Can anyone recommend a modern alternative to "namebench <https://code.google.com/archive/p/namebench/>"?
Looks like it got forked to this project, and the Go port was updated to at least replicated the original Python 2 functions: mrwiora/NAMEinator: NAMEinator DNS Benchmark tool (namebench successor) — https://github.com/mrwiora/NAMEinator Note that even it has hit some bitrot with the build instructions. 'go get' isn't a thing anymore, seemingly (hey, why keep something so obvious and useful?), so the build process is now described here: https://github.com/mrwiora/NAMEinator/issues/46#issuecomment-789247422 You might want to substitute $GOPATH/src/github.com/mwiora for the various paths in that description. Also, it seems to require go >= 1.16.1, which is newer than Debian stable. I tried to build it on a Raspberry Pi and it all went very pear-shaped. go's build errors are not very compelling: who knew that the quiet response "package embed is not in GOROOT" was a total build failure? The results are terse, but possibly useful to someone: ./NAMEinator starting NAMEinator - version custom understood the following configuration: {numberOfDomains:100 debug:false contest:true nameserver:} ------------- NOTE: as this is an alpha - we rely on feedback - please report bugs and feature requests to https://github.com/mwiora/NAMEinator/issues and provide this output OS: linux ARCH: amd64 ------------- trying to load nameservers from nameserver-globals trying to load domains from alexa-top-2000-domains LETS GO 900 / 900 [------------------------------------------------] 100.00% 9 p/s 1m43s finished - presenting results: 1.1.1.1: Avg. [82.974024ms], Min. [10ms], Max. [818.257401ms] 1.0.0.1: Avg. [87.01652ms], Min. [10ms], Max. [1.331284997s] 8.8.4.4: Avg. [87.607785ms], Min. [10ms], Max. [716.72469ms] 8.8.8.8: Avg. [91.865296ms], Min. [10ms], Max. [817.38634ms] 208.67.222.222: Avg. [114.947277ms], Min. [10ms], Max. [1.384931226s] 127.0.0.53: Avg. [119.101241ms], Min. [10ms], Max. [718.128141ms] 2001:470:20::2: Avg. [133.263523ms], Min. [10ms], Max. [614.40377ms] 156.154.71.1: Avg. [136.4174ms], Min. [10ms], Max. [614.731507ms] 216.146.35.35: Avg. [172.974867ms], Min. [10ms], Max. [1.33162978s] Au revoir! This on about the slowest Teksavvy DSL around. Stewart
On Thu, Nov 3, 2022 at 9:27 AM Stewart C. Russell via talk <talk@gtalug.org> wrote: Looks like it got forked to this project, and the Go port was updated to
at least replicated the original Python 2 functions:
mrwiora/NAMEinator: NAMEinator DNS Benchmark tool (namebench successor) — https://github.com/mrwiora/NAMEinator
Thanks! I'll give it a try. Hopefully the hoops you describe won't be too onerous. Never worked with Go before.
This on about the slowest Teksavvy DSL around.
Part of the reason for my questions is that Teksavvy's own DNS is both slow and occasionally hijacked. I love them as a data pipe but their nameserver is ... sub-optimal. - Evan
On Thu, 3 Nov 2022 at 12:13, Evan Leibovitch via talk <talk@gtalug.org> wrote:
Part of the reason for my questions is that Teksavvy's own DNS is both slow and occasionally hijacked.
Where are you configuring your DNS server(s) and what are you using them for? If it's mostly for web browsing, your browser might be configured for DNS over HTTPS (DoH) or you may wish to consider doing so. In this case the DoH server is probably configured in the browser settings and likely isn't Teksavvy's (I don't think they even provide DoH). -- Scott
On Thu, Nov 3, 2022 at 1:29 PM Scott Allen via talk <talk@gtalug.org> wrote:
... If it's mostly for web browsing, your browser might be configured for DNS over HTTPS (DoH)
TIL that Firefox had already set this for me, and was using "CIRA Canadian Shield" (the default). As for DNS, never explicitly fiddled with that myself. Stewart
What was happening is that: 1. Mobile Firefox refused to display some pages when I used my home wifi, claiming bad certificate or to SSL or something else. Switching off the home wifi to the cellular provider solved that problem. 2. Some addresses had been hijacked, when my Economist app tried to call home to go beyond headlines, I would get danger notices that would go to phishing sites if I ignored the warnings. 3. On the desktop, some web destinations that I knew were good *sometimes* were blocked by FF's security mechanisms. 4. A site that had changed its name-to-IP info a month ago refused to resolve properly, no matter how many times I tried to clear cache 5. An automated program that fetched downloads via HTTPS often (but not always) failed with error 111 (connection refused), eventually it would succeed after many retries The solution I tried, even before doing the benchmarks, was changing the DNS on the home DSL modem/router (which also did DHCP for the house) to Google's public DNS (8.8.8.8, 8.8.4.4). All the above problems went away. I subsequently ran namebench (have to invoke it with `python2`, won't run with the current version) which said that my existing (Google) setup was faster than any of the alternatives, including Teksavvy's outsourced CIRA server. FWIW, next fastest was Primus(!) at 216.254.141.2 I toyed with the idea of trying the Cloudflare 1.1.1.1 app but decided it wasn't worth the bother. Has anyone else tried it? - Evan On Thu, Nov 3, 2022 at 1:30 PM Scott Allen via talk <talk@gtalug.org> wrote:
On Thu, 3 Nov 2022 at 12:13, Evan Leibovitch via talk <talk@gtalug.org> wrote:
Part of the reason for my questions is that Teksavvy's own DNS is both slow and occasionally hijacked.
Where are you configuring your DNS server(s) and what are you using them for? If it's mostly for web browsing, your browser might be configured for DNS over HTTPS (DoH) or you may wish to consider doing so. In this case the DoH server is probably configured in the browser settings and likely isn't Teksavvy's (I don't think they even provide DoH).
-- Scott ---
participants (4)
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Evan Leibovitch -
Scott Allen -
Stewart C. Russell -
Stewart Russell