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Measuring the Deployment of Local Root in DNS Recursive Resolvers
Stefan, Razvan (2025) Measuring the Deployment of Local Root in DNS Recursive Resolvers.
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| Abstract: | The Domain Name System (DNS) is a critical component of the Internet, which translates human-readable domain names into IP addresses. At the top of this hierarchical system, there are the root servers, which handle billions of queries per day and serve as the starting point for DNS resolution processes. To reduce dependence on these root servers and improve performance and resilience, RFC 8806 proposes the use of local copies of the root zone, known as local root, on recursive resolvers. Despite the potential benefits, it remains unclear to what extent this feature has been adopted in practice. In this paper, we investigate the possible deployment of locally served root zones. To evaluate the impact of this setup, we first conducted local testing using DNS resolver software, namely BIND and Unbound. We observed a significant decrease in root query response times; when using Unbound, the average dropped from 130 milliseconds per query to as low as 1.5 ms, when a local root zone was in use. These results show the benefits of local root configurations under controlled conditions. We then analyzed data from 1,000 RIPE Atlas probes and identified around 40 probes that rely on resolvers with DNS resolution patterns that suggest they may be configured with local root. These probes showed response times that were likely too fast to involve querying the root servers. However, due to factors like aggressive caching or infrastructure configurations, we cannot confirm with certainty that these probes were using a local root zone. These findings highlight the performance increase potential of local root deployments in controlled environments and the difficulty of identifying their presence in the wild based solely on observational data. |
| Item Type: | Essay (Bachelor) |
| Faculty: | EEMCS: Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science |
| Programme: | Computer Science BSc (56964) |
| Link to this item: | https://purl.utwente.nl/essays/107307 |
| Export this item as: | BibTeX EndNote HTML Citation Reference Manager |
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