Will Vista Overload the DNS?

Jamie Northern writes, "Thanks to new directory software, Windows Vista could put a greater load on Internet DNS servers. But experts disagree over whether we're headed for a prime-time traffic jam or an insignificant slowdown. Paul Mockapetris,inventor of DNS, believes Vista's introduction will cause a surge in DNS traffic because the operating system supports two versions of the Internet Protocol (IPv4 and IPv6). David Ulevitch, chief executive at OpenDNS, a provider of free DNS services, said Vista's use of IPv6 will not disrupt the Internet at large. 'DNS can be improved, but predicting its collapse is just spreading FUD.'"

Windows IPv6 support

[shani]

If memory serves, Microsoft had an IPv6 stack for Windows 2000 that you could download from Microsoft's research site. In XP, IPv6 is included, but is disabled by default. A single command enables it. My understanding is that in Vista, IPv6 will be enabled by default.

Honestly, we're going to run out of new IPv4 addresses to hand out in a few years. We need IPv6, and I think Microsoft would be foolish not to enable it by default in Vista.

Non-news?

[CCFreak2K]

And there was one guy who said the introduction of Windows XP and its raw sockets API would allow programs to "generate the most damaging forms of Internet attacks." [grc.com] And we all know that the Internet fell apart because of that, right?

FUD.

Re:Complicated mumbo jumbo

[Asrynachs]

Strangely enough it's largely due to the number of viruses today. So many people are filtering everything they view through firewalls and virus scanners it's decreasing the load on the DNS.

Re:This is ridiculous

[Randolpho]

I think you are exactly right. Note how the original article points to an article where Mockapetris claims that DNS servers are going to slow down broadband because they're operating near capacity. Oh, and happily, Nominum (the company he chairs) will provide new, bigger, faster, more scalable DNS solutions for a nominal fee. I wonder if Nominum has had better than nominal business lately. Maybe we can nominate somebody to check into it?

Never happy...

[4D6963]

Come on, it's about time Windows adopts IPv6. We would criticize Vista if it didn't, and as it does we criticize it for it anyways. I'm as pro-M$ as the next /.er but sometimes part of the geek crowd won't even let M$ a chance.

Re:Why any different than Linux or MacOS X?

[Anonymous Coward]

thats the people that don't buy it - how much of the world uses_pirated_versions of winxp? aside from if they know it sucks, whats to say they wont pirate vista - instantly increasing the count of vista users...

Re:one solution comes to mind

[Martin Blank]

IPv6 is going to be forced along by the US Dept of Defense, which is pushing to get its networks on IPv6 within the next couple of years. This will cause much of the rest of the federal government to do the same starting with those agencies that work most closely with the military (such as DHS), which in turn have close working relationships with other agencies and will drag them along. States will be pulled into it as a result of their ties with the federal government, and then local governments will be forced to come along for the ride eventually. With all of these ties in place, more ISPs will start directly supporting IPv6.

Incidentally, IPv6 support has only just been added to the DOCSIS standards with the release of 3.0. However, even by 2011, barely more than half of the nationwide cablemodem infrastructure will be DOCSIS 3.0-compliant under current estimates, and that doesn't mean that the cablemodems themselves will be compliant, as DOCSIS 3.0 is backwards-compatible. I'd go for it now if I could, but somehow I suspect that Time-Warner isn't going to have things ready next month.

As rarely as I can say it...

[Belial6]

As rarely as I can say it, MS seems to be doing EXACTLY what should be done. In fact this could be the tipping point that moves us from IPv4 to IPv6. With 95% of the worlds desktops using IPv4 exclusivly, it made no sense worrying about IPv6 in the routers, and it would have been suicide to go to a pure IPv6 implementation. With Vista, most people will, in a few years, upgrade to Vista, switch to Linux or OSX, or be ready to accept being cut off from direct access to the internet. That means that 95% of the worlds desktops with be IPv6 first and formost, and ISPs can confidently move to an IPv6 backbone without fear of cutting off their customers.

Either way, I don't think that NAT is dead. It might change form a bit, but those in control of the numbers are not likely to just start giving them away, just because they have an over abundence of them any more than the Media Barons just give out music just because they have an over abundance of copies of that.

Re:This is ridiculous

[Vaakku]

True. But what was REALLY intresting is that other article told that he's working for comppany which sells DNS solutions. =)

Re:Windows IPv6 support

[nevesis]

Actually, that's pretty much FUD. We won't be running out of IPv4 addresses anytime soon, even with our current allocations. ARIN has about 12% free, RIPE 4%, APNIC 7%. Current routing utilization ratio is high with ARIN, but I digress.

Here is my point, a simple reallocation would solve many of our problems. For example, there are a number of /8s which are simply UNUSED. We could also reallocate and force some people to use NAT but that is another story.

Below are some of the most interesting numbers for various /8 blocks:

IANA /8 blocks that are listed as allocated, but that are not routed at all:
      9/8 - IBM
      11/8 - US DoD
      19/8 - Ford
      21/8 - DDN-RVN (US DoD)
      22/8 - DISA (ARPANET; US DoD)
      26/8 - DISA (ARPANET; US DoD)
      28/8 - DISA (ARPANET; US DoD)
      29/8 - DISA (ARPANET; US DoD)
      30/8 - DISA (ARPANET; US DoD)
      46/8 - BBN (now L3)
      46/8 - Prudential
      51/8 - UK Department of Social Security
      54/8 - Merck
 
/8 blocks with least amount of routed space (but at least some):
      6/8 (US-DOD) - 2% routed
      25/8 (UK Royal Signals and Radar Establishment) - 1% routed
      60/8 (APNIC) - 1% routed (one /20)
      34/8 (Haliburton) - 1% routed (one /16)
      43/8 (V6NIC.NET) - 4% routed
      52/8 (DuPont) - 1% routed (320 /24 blocks)
      56/8 (US Postal Service) - 1% routed (160 /24 blocks)
      154/8 (Internic Legacy) - 4% routed
      188/8 (Internic Legacy) - 1% routed (one /16)
      201/8 (LACNIC) - 1% routed
      222/8 (APNIC current) - 4% routed