The Ask Mr. DNS Podcast

In this episode, their triumphant Labor Day return to podcasting, Matt and Cricket answer Alfredo Colón’s question on hypothetical restrictions on the IP address that a domain name may map to, and then slap Austin Ekwebelam’s wrist for asking how to disable a useful extension like EDNS0.  In the process, Cricket reveals how the host hp.com got its name and why he never made it further in HP’s IT organization.

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In our ninth episode, Matt and Cricket answer listener Scott McClanahan’s excellent question about the “zone apex” and tell Duncan Hart what gear they use to produce the podcast and why it’s better than their old gear.  Except that Matt fails to mention the name of the mic he uses.  (It’s a Shure BG 4.1.)

As per usual, the discussion deteriorates into a windy exposition of how DNSSEC works, but you’ve come to expect that by now.

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In this episode, Matt and Cricket congratulate an administrator at a community-spirited ISP for wanting to lock down recursion on his name servers and offer their opinions on when you should sign your zones using DNSSEC.  Cricket also invites all podcast listeners to an upcoming webinar on DNSSEC with Dan Kaminsky and Scott Rose, which is – gasp! – on Wednesday of this week.

You’ll especially want to stay tuned until the end, when you’ll hear Cricket sing (poorly) part of the revised version of the “Itchy and Scratchy” theme song.  Plus Matt thinks he sounds funny throughout.

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Thank you for your questions, dear listeners, and please stay tuned! Mr. DNS will be back soon with another podcast. But Matt’s busy and Cricket’s leaving on a trip, so it’ll probably be at least a couple of weeks before they get it together enough to produce another. That’s what you get for working with volunteers.

Matt and Cricket cite two data points as evidence of their burgeoning popularity and answer questions from listeners interested in cutting corners:  One in configuring in-addr.arpa delegation for a /20 network, and another in responding to queries outside of the zones a name server is authoritative for.  Fair warning:  Mr. DNS does not sanction shortcuts!

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In this episode, Matt and Cricket discuss and debate DNS terminology, explaining resolvers (stub resolvers, iterative resolvers), name servers (recursive name servers, authoritative name servers); they ruminate on how much of name server design is undocumented lore; and make many, many insider references.  Oh, and then they remember the name and purpose of the podcast and answer a listener’s questions about lame delegations, revealing a rift between Matt’s and Cricket’s philosophies about them.

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In this, their first in-person podcast, Matt and Cricket examine the redundancy of the phrase “aiding and abetting,” discuss quirks in forwarding terminology, and cover two DNS-related security issues:  One in which resolvers are reconfigured by malware to use open recursive name servers, and another — happening on the Internet right now — in which name servers are used as amplifiers in a DDoS attack.

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Those of you who manage podcasts via iTunes may be interested to know that the Ask Mr. DNS Podcast is now available via the iTunes Store (free, of course):

Ask Mr. DNS via the iTunes Store

There’s really no difference between subscribing to it here or subscribing to it there, but doesn’t it make us seem more official now that we’re on iTunes?