Query On DNS Settings

Hi

This question has been nagging me for some time and I thought I'd ask on here to see if anyone knows the answer.

I'm using a Speedtouch 585 from BE and run a DNS program called 'DNS Benchmark', on a monthly basis. I find that by changing the DNS servers on the 585 router, web pages load quicker - usually I make no changes but occasionally I find a definite improvement.

My question:

I don't understand the comments on the Conclusion tab, which I have copied here (sorry it's long winded). Can someone explain in plain English what this means??? (I'm running 32 bit Windows 7)
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� System has only ONE (router based) nameserver configured.
It appears that only one local (router gateway) DNS nameserver, with the IP address of [192.168.1.254], is currently providing all DNS name resolution services to this system. This configuration is not recommended because most consumer-grade routers provide inefficient and under-powered DNS resolution services.

Unless the DNS resolvers your router is using is under your control, it may not be providing the best or complete name resolution services. For example, is it using multiple redundant DNS nameservers?

Users of GRC's DNS Spoofability system have determined that consumer-grade routers can be crashed by the receipt of specific DNS reply packets from the Internet. This opens the possibility that Internet-based criminals could acquire access to your router from the Internet as well as to the private network in controls.

Many consumer-grade routers fail to provide the full range of DNS lookup services. This may have been detected by the benchmark and noted below.

Recommended Actions:

Unless you have some specific reason not to, you should give serious thought to disabling your router's provisioning of DNS services (which it is providing for all computers on your local network). After this is done, a fresh reboot of your computers will likely reveal the multiple DNS nameservers provided by your ISP. This is a superior configuration, without an under-powered router acting as a incompetent middleman and impeding all DNS access.

Note that if you can determine the IP addresses of your ISP-provided nameservers (which may be visible in your router's web configuration) you could manually add them to the nameservers being tested by this benchmark, while also leaving your router providing DNS. This would allow you to compare the performance when running through your router versus "going direct".


� System nameserver is SLOWER than 37 public alternatives!
This benchmark found 37 publicly available DNS nameservers that are reliably faster than the slowest nameserver currently being used by this system. If you were to adjust your system's configuration to use the faster of these nameservers instead of what it is currently using, your DNS lookup performance, and all use of the Internet, would be improved.

Recommended Actions:

With at least 95% certainty: Based upon a statistical analysis of the spread in timing value samples received during the benchmark, there is at least a 95% certainty that the performance conclusions stated above are correct. But even so, since changing DNS nameservers requires thought and effort, it's something you want to be sure about. Therefore, since these results represent a single snapshot in time, you may wish to confirm that the faster alternative nameservers are consistently faster than your system's currently configured nameservers, and that those public alternatives don't have any negative characteristics such as being colored orange to signify that they redirect mistaken URLs to an advertising-laden search page rather than returning an error (which will be a concern to some users).

You may also wish to check the relative performance at different times of day to make sure that the performance improvement over your system's current nameservers is reliable throughout the day.

And you may wish to make sure that the alternative nameservers are enough faster than what you are currently using for the improvement to be worth changing away from what you're currently using. (This test is only saying that it's 95% sure they are any amount faster.)

1. Windows supports 2 DNS servers in the network configuration, so warning that you only have one set, the idea being that if the one (local router) is slow or intermittment you have no fall back.

2. The router itself though has 2 DNS usually configured, I presume you do, so nullifys number 1 largely.

3. It raises the point that some routers are poor at handling the DNS lookups, so sometimes putting the public DNS IP in the computer is better performance wise.

4. If DNS is running reasonably enough i.e. no big delay in loading sites, then leave well alone. Constant fiddling with settings tends to cause more problems, I find.

Many thanks - yes the router does have two DNS server inputs, so if one fails the other one is there. I have not touched the DNS settings in Windows (left to automatically find the DNS, presumably from the router).

Thanks for a plain English answer!

You can configure the Speedtouch to give out primary and secondary DNS servers to the PC instead of the router IP address

http://www.beusergroup.co.uk/technotes/index.php?tit...


Using the router IP address means that any DNS lookups are forwarded to the router to use whatever DNS servers are set on the router. This can cause delays if the router is being overloaded. The 780WL certainly responds more slowly

Manually configuring DNS servers on the PC overrides the router and if you pick DNS servers that are quick to respond ( not BE's in over 5 years experience) it can make the browsing experience quicker

DNS Benchmark nearly always comes back with OpenDNS being the fastest to respond with Google nearly always 2nd for me. BE's DNS servers do on occassion come 2nd, but OpenDNS 99.9% of the time are the quickest