Are the Plusnet DNS servers okay?

Hi all,

Just found that I was having problems reaching most websites and it *seems* like it's a problem with the Plusnet DNS servers. I've switched to the Google ones for now (8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4) so that I can post here!

This is what I was getting before:

Text
1 23 45 6	$ dig @212.159.13.49 google.com any  ; <<>> DiG 9.8.1-P1 <<>> @212.159.13.49 google.com any ; (1 server found);; global options: +cmd ;; connection timed out; no servers could be reached

I can see no mention of any problems on the Service Status page though:
http://portal.plus.net/supportpages.html?a=2

you can check the dns servers using the dig command.

dig @{dns server name} {dns server name}
basically asks it about itself. Good way to check the overall performance of a DNS server

You can also ask it to check another host, which you have done. If this fails then its having a moment
dig @{dns server name} {a web address}

There is a long ongoing thread here about DNS issues.

Strange; it's still apparently "having a moment" in that my digs aren't getting a response... although curiously, if I telnet into my router (Plusnet TG582n) and do a lookup there ("dns client nslookup host = example.com") then this does manage to resolve okay.

I can't figure out why this would happen, and consequently can't 100% rule out me making a mistake somewhere! However, when the problem started at about 17:20, I hadn't changed anything.

Thanks for that! It seems to mostly be about the Plusnet DNS running slow, although there's a post near the end that mentions some time-outs, but for me it seems pretty much unusable right now.

I'll stick with Google DNS for now and re-try the plusnet machines tomorrow!

Thanks again,

Peter.

Don't we give Google enough information? Opendns servers are generally faster in the UK anyway.

You can check the dns speeds using this (Google!) program.
https://code.google.com/p/namebench/

In reply to a post by PeterProxy:

Don't we give Google enough information? Opendns servers are generally faster in the UK anyway.

You can check the dns speeds using this (Google!) program.
https://code.google.com/p/namebench/

I went with OpenDNS today, paid for the VIP option as I can switch off NX so it conforms with the RPC spec and removes all the adverts on their pages. Also means I can move the domain blocking from the router to OpenDNS and increase my download throughput by 20Mb/s!

Edited by Skilty (Fri 27-Sep-13 15:45:27)