Is PlusNet DNS on a go slow today?

Anyone else noticed how [censored] slow the PN DNS servers are today.

Especially 212.159.6.10

I use 13.49 and 13.50

At work, so can't say what they're like.

http://www.opendns.com/ provides an alternative to your ISPs own DNS servers. These are public and can be used freely:

208.67.222.222 and 208.67.220.220

Take a look at their website to understand how and why they are offering this for free. Basically they are trying to protect your from phising by redirecting queries of known phishing sites and taking the opportunity to show you an advert. They also try to intelligently handle typos (e.g. plus.nt takes you to plus.net).

I'm not convinced, but at least it provides an alternative if the ISPs own DNS servers are down.

Keep up plusnet.....

Another solution is to run your own dns server using software such as djbdns. Unfortunately, this is only practical if you already have a UNIX box running on your network. I moved to this solution 4 years ago after problems with an ISP's dns server and its been 100% reliable since then.

Edited by deleted (Fri 29-Sep-06 09:41:56)

You can get a windows DNS server from http://treewalkdns.com/. It is free for personal use and appears to work well. I have also set my router up to use the PC the DNS server is on as its primary DNS with ISP ones as secondary. This way when the router gives DHCP addresses to PC's it gives them my owne DNS server first.

So what would be the network 'map' for having you own DNS server? As a box off one router port, or sitting between the Internet and the router? Also, what's the deal with potential hacking of the box / denial of service?

Never hosted a DNS server, so I really am curious.

i run mine inside my network on a PC that is used for not alot else (other than when I cant run something on Vista).
The box sits behind my routers firewall and has no ports forwarded to it. It needs to talk to authorative DNS servers but none need to talk to it as it is only caching requests (a bit like the DNS cache windows uses itself).

I thought it might be hard to setup DNS but Treewalk is very easy - just install the app and the zone updates (all are available from the Treewalk website and full instructions are also provided). Check the config for errors and then make sure any firewalls on the PC allow access to the app. I dont have PC firewall issues because I don't use PC firewalls, instead I use hardware based ones.

So when setting up TCP/IP on your main PC, you just pop (assuming a private network) IP of 192.168.7.3 or similar into the DNS settings?

Yup, if you set static then give the IP of the PC running the DNS server as the primary DNS.

As I said my router(DG834G) passes the DNS addresses through as part of DHCP, so by setting that with my DNS server as its primary and then PN servers as secondary, all PC's that use DHCP get the correct DNS settings.