Re: .mil domain root only hosted by one server??

[Joe Abley <jabley () automagic org>]

On Wed, Aug 21, 2002 at 03:46:22PM -0400, Vinny Abello wrote:
> 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.

  [jabley@peppermill]% for n in a b c d e f g h i j k l m; do
  for> dig @${n}.root-servers.net ns mil. | egrep -qi '^mil.*NS' && \    
  for cmdand> echo "${n}.root-servers.net provides a delegation for MIL."
  for> done
  a.root-servers.net provides a delegation for MIL.
  b.root-servers.net provides a delegation for MIL.
  c.root-servers.net provides a delegation for MIL.
  d.root-servers.net provides a delegation for MIL.
  e.root-servers.net provides a delegation for MIL.
  f.root-servers.net provides a delegation for MIL.
  g.root-servers.net provides a delegation for MIL.
  h.root-servers.net provides a delegation for MIL.
  i.root-servers.net provides a delegation for MIL.
  j.root-servers.net provides a delegation for MIL.
  k.root-servers.net provides a delegation for MIL.
  l.root-servers.net provides a delegation for MIL.
  m.root-servers.net provides a delegation for MIL.
  [jabley@peppermill]% dig ns mil.

  ; <<>> DiG 8.3 <<>> ns mil. 
  ;; res options: init recurs defnam dnsrch
  ;; got answer:
  ;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 2
  ;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 11, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 5
  ;; QUERY SECTION:
  ;;      mil, type = NS, class = IN

  ;; ANSWER SECTION:
  mil.                    23h59m24s IN NS  PAC2.NIPR.mil.
  mil.                    23h59m24s IN NS  A.ROOT-SERVERS.NET.
  mil.                    23h59m24s IN NS  B.ROOT-SERVERS.NET.
  mil.                    23h59m24s IN NS  E.ROOT-SERVERS.NET.
  mil.                    23h59m24s IN NS  G.ROOT-SERVERS.NET.
  mil.                    23h59m24s IN NS  H.ROOT-SERVERS.NET.
  mil.                    23h59m24s IN NS  CON1.NIPR.mil.
  mil.                    23h59m24s IN NS  CON2.NIPR.mil.
  mil.                    23h59m24s IN NS  EUR1.NIPR.mil.
  mil.                    23h59m24s IN NS  EUR2.NIPR.mil.
  mil.                    23h59m24s IN NS  PAC1.NIPR.mil.

  ;; ADDITIONAL SECTION:
  A.ROOT-SERVERS.NET.     6d23h59m20s IN A  198.41.0.4
  B.ROOT-SERVERS.NET.     6d23h59m20s IN A  128.9.0.107
  E.ROOT-SERVERS.NET.     6d23h59m21s IN A  192.203.230.10
  G.ROOT-SERVERS.NET.     6d23h59m22s IN A  192.112.36.4
  H.ROOT-SERVERS.NET.     6d23h59m22s IN A  128.63.2.53

  ;; Total query time: 93 msec
  ;; FROM: peppermill.automagic.org to SERVER: default -- 204.152.184.68
  ;; WHEN: Wed Aug 21 12:56:09 2002
  ;; MSG SIZE  sent: 21  rcvd: 316

  [jabley@peppermill]% 

> 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.

All thirteen root servers contain delegations for MIL, and there
are eleven servers which will provide an authoritative response to
a query for SOA (of which five are also root servers).


Joe