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DNS servers that offer privacy and filtering

danielmiessler.com

11–20 of 95 posts

Re: DNS servers that offer privacy and filtering

#11
post #7

DNS servers should not be used as "internet connectivity tests" by pinging them. They are not maintained as ICMP test servers, and that is not their purpose. While many do not block ICMP packets, there are typically rate limiting systems in place, and other reasons why they would not respond to ping requests. Pinging DNS servers is a shitty inconclusive test for internet connectivity, or SLA measurements etc etc.

So, what should we ping for testing Internet connectivity ?

Re: DNS servers that offer privacy and filtering

#12
post #7

DNS servers should not be used as "internet connectivity tests" by pinging them. They are not maintained as ICMP test servers, and that is not their purpose. While many do not block ICMP packets, there are typically rate limiting systems in place, and other reasons why they would not respond to ping requests. Pinging DNS servers is a shitty inconclusive test for internet connectivity, or SLA measurements etc etc.

I've used the thing [0] from grc.com, is there other ways that are reliable as well?

https://www.grc.com/dns/benchmark.htm

Re: DNS servers that offer privacy and filtering

#13
post #10

https://pi-hole.net/ is a project to consider for home and small business networks that you're looking to protect via DNS without sending all your requests to a third party.

Your requests are still forwarded to a third party with a Pi-hole. They are sometimes cached and sites you have blocked do not resolve, but choosing a DNS provider is still required.

Re: DNS servers that offer privacy and filtering

#14
post #7

DNS servers should not be used as "internet connectivity tests" by pinging them. They are not maintained as ICMP test servers, and that is not their purpose. While many do not block ICMP packets, there are typically rate limiting systems in place, and other reasons why they would not respond to ping requests. Pinging DNS servers is a shitty inconclusive test for internet connectivity, or SLA measurements etc etc.

So, what should we ping for testing Internet connectivity ?

There’s ping.sunet.se as maintained by the Swedish University Network (i.e. the network connecting Swedish Universities; there is no single “Swedish University”).

Re: DNS servers that offer privacy and filtering

#15
post #2

I know this is not for everyone, but I strongly prefer to run my own recursive resolver at home. Performance is great, plus I get regular DNS for the machines on my home network. Also, it was a fun little project. :)

More people should do this.

I recently switched my home network DNS forwarder from Bind to DNS Crypt Proxy (https://github.com/jedisct1/dnscrypt-proxy). You can get ad/content filtering lists along with some little privacy enhancements like DNS Crypt and DNS over HTTPS support for encrypted DNS queries to supported services, like CloudFlare.

Re: DNS servers that offer privacy and filtering

#16
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, what should we ping for testing Internet connectivity ?

There’s ping.sunet.se as maintained by the Swedish University Network (i.e. the network connecting Swedish Universities; there is no single “Swedish University”).

The advantage of pinging IPs is that you don’t have to have a working DNS setup to test your connection. If DNS does work, then your connection probably works, too.

Re: DNS servers that offer privacy and filtering

#18
post #7

DNS servers should not be used as "internet connectivity tests" by pinging them. They are not maintained as ICMP test servers, and that is not their purpose. While many do not block ICMP packets, there are typically rate limiting systems in place, and other reasons why they would not respond to ping requests. Pinging DNS servers is a shitty inconclusive test for internet connectivity, or SLA measurements etc etc.

But a great test for “am I getting out to the net” that’s ok to have a low specificity.

So it is not smart to make a lot of decisions based on “ping 1.1” timing out, it is so quick it’s a good first step in trying to debug a network issue.

Re: DNS servers that offer privacy and filtering

#20
post #7

DNS servers should not be used as "internet connectivity tests" by pinging them. They are not maintained as ICMP test servers, and that is not their purpose. While many do not block ICMP packets, there are typically rate limiting systems in place, and other reasons why they would not respond to ping requests. Pinging DNS servers is a shitty inconclusive test for internet connectivity, or SLA measurements etc etc.

So, what should we ping for testing Internet connectivity ?

You are better off using traceroute to one of these addresses, you should at least get some route outside of your own network.
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