Google announced
that it's making 2 DNS servers available
publicly. The servers are
8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 . They've also givenconfiguration
instructions
on their DNS page. I configured my /etc/resolv.conf to refer to Google's
DNS. Before this I ran some quick tests using
dig to compare it with
OpenDNS.
| [sourcecode language="text"]
| $ dig @208.67.222.222 gingerjoos.com
; <<>> DiG 9.4.2 <<>> @208.67.222.222 gingerjoos.com
; (1 server found)
;; global options: printcmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 1273
;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 1, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 0
;; ANSWER SECTION:
gingerjoos.com. 14400 IN A 208.113.199.196
;; Query time: 751 msec
;; SERVER: 208.67.222.222#53(208.67.222.222)
;; WHEN: Fri Dec 4 09:13:58 2009
;; MSG SIZE rcvd: 48
$ dig @8.8.8.8 gingerjoos.com
; <<>> DiG 9.4.2 <<>> @8.8.8.8 gingerjoos.com
; (1 server found)
;; global options: printcmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 2594
;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 1, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 0
;; ANSWER SECTION:
gingerjoos.com. 14400 IN A 208.113.199.196
;; Query time: 616 msec
;; SERVER: 8.8.8.8#53(8.8.8.8)
;; WHEN: Fri Dec 4 09:14:09 2009
;; MSG SIZE rcvd: 48
$ dig @8.8.4.4 gingerjoos.com
; <<>> DiG 9.4.2 <<>> @8.8.4.4 gingerjoos.com
; (1 server found)
;; global options: printcmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 34741
;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 1, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 0
;; ANSWER SECTION:
gingerjoos.com. 14321 IN A 208.113.199.196
;; Query time: 123 msec
;; SERVER: 8.8.4.4#53(8.8.4.4)
;; WHEN: Fri Dec 4 09:15:28 2009
;; MSG SIZE rcvd: 48
[/sourcecode]
Dig allows you to directly query a DNS server and get its reply. It
shows stats from that query - response. The stat we're interested in is
this one
;; Query time: 123 msec
The IP 208.67.222.222 is the address of the OpenDNS server. Let's try
one more query
[sourcecode language="text"]
$ dig @208.67.222.222 mec.ac.in
; <<>> DiG 9.4.2 <<>> @208.67.222.222 mec.ac.in
; (1 server found)
;; global options: printcmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 44308
;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 1, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 0
;; ANSWER SECTION:
mec.ac.in. 604800 IN A 210.212.232.132
;; Query time: 389 msec
;; SERVER: 208.67.222.222#53(208.67.222.222)
;; WHEN: Sat Dec 5 12:38:57 2009
;; MSG SIZE rcvd: 43
$ dig @8.8.8.8 mec.ac.in
; <<>> DiG 9.4.2 <<>> @8.8.8.8 mec.ac.in
; (1 server found)
;; global options: printcmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 56600
;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 1, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 0
;; ANSWER SECTION:
mec.ac.in. 160448 IN A 210.212.232.131
;; Query time: 121 msec
;; SERVER: 8.8.8.8#53(8.8.8.8)
;; WHEN: Sat Dec 5 12:39:06 2009
;; MSG SIZE rcvd: 43
[/sourcecode]
You can try more queries and see for yourself. At least as of now Google
DNS seems to be faster.