Comments on DNS robustness

Abstract

The Domain Name System (DNS) maps human-friendly names into the network addresses necessary for network communication. Therefore, the robustness of the DNS is crucial to the general operation of the Internet. As such, the DNS protocol and architecture were designed to facilitate structural robustness within system. For instance, a domain can depend on authoritative nameservers in several topologically disparate datacenters to aid robustness. However, the actual operation of the system need not utilize these robustness tools. In this paper we provide an initial analysis of the structural robustness of the DNS ecosystem over the last nine years.