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Faster, More Awesome GitHub Pages

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Re: Faster, More Awesome GitHub Pages

#41

Please GitHub add https (with SPDY) support. Willing to pay for this.

MediaCrush hosts our blog [1] on GitHub pages, and we proxy it [2] with nginx to add SSL.

[1] https://blog.mediacru.sh

[2] https://github.com/MediaCrush/MediaCrush/blob/master/config/...

And the pages: https://github.com/MediaCrush/mediacrush.github.io

Re: Faster, More Awesome GitHub Pages

#42
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The worst part of ALIAS is that traditional hosted DNS servers don't support it, as far as I can see. Usually CDN providers do handle static IP addresses at the zone apex somehow, but in this case it seems they don't.

It's not a real record in the sense that it's never sent to the client so it doesn't really matter no ? It's just a convenient way to say "return an A record or that fqdn" on the configuration side.

Yeah, you should never see anything like "IN ALIAS" in the output of dig, for example, and getaddrinfo(3) wouldn't know what to do with that sort of record. It's all internal to the authoritative NS.

...which is a bummer, because doing this adds a weird sort of black box step in the DNS resolution chain between client and server. It makes troubleshooting DNS problems not so much fun.

Re: Faster, More Awesome GitHub Pages

#43
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a real record in the sense that it's never sent to the client so it doesn't really matter no ? It's just a convenient way to say "return an A record or that fqdn" on the configuration side.

Yeah, you should never see anything like "IN ALIAS" in the output of dig, for example, and getaddrinfo(3) wouldn't know what to do with that sort of record. It's all internal to the authoritative NS. ...which is a bummer, because doing this adds a weird sort of black box step in the DNS resolution chain between client and server. It makes troubleshooting DNS problems not so much fun.

Agreed and the option is often displayed along other real DNS records names adding to the confusion if you're not familiar with DNS systems.

Re: Faster, More Awesome GitHub Pages

#44
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's absolutely correct. Building on that: The github blog post states that using an ALIAS record will allow you to take advantage of their CDN. I don't know if I believe that. Since the ip is being fetched by the ALIAS supporting nameserver, the CDN will use that as the end user location. Therefore, everyone is going to that location. The only way around that would be: 1) CDN uses IP ANYCAST (in which case their C…

I think that's right. But: a) this is a common problem for CDNs, as you can never guarantee the DNS server that's asking for your CNAME is close to the cache servers that you want to deliver your end-user content; I'd be surprised if the first CDN cache server a client fetches github content from didn't inspect the end-user IP address from the HTTP session and redirect to a closer / "more optimal" point of presence i…

I have always wanted to be able to use routeviews for more than an easy way to bring about feelings of network inadequacy.

Re: Faster, More Awesome GitHub Pages

#45
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that's right. But: a) this is a common problem for CDNs, as you can never guarantee the DNS server that's asking for your CNAME is close to the cache servers that you want to deliver your end-user content; I'd be surprised if the first CDN cache server a client fetches github content from didn't inspect the end-user IP address from the HTTP session and redirect to a closer / "more optimal" point of presence i…

this is a common problem for CDNs, as you can never guarantee the DNS server that's asking for your CNAME is close to the cache servers that you want to deliver your end-user content; This is the case, and it's a significant problem - especially for people who use Google's DNS server or OpenDNS There is an experimental, but reasonably widely deployed[1] solution available though. I'd be surprised if the first CDN cac…

Google's public DNS (8.8.8.8) uses anycast as well.

https://developers.google.com/speed/public-dns/faq#anycast

Re: Faster, More Awesome GitHub Pages

#46

>Our plans start at $8/month. Register .com for $14, .me for $24, and .co.uk for $8 I don't get services like DNSimple. Why would I pay monthly just be able to pay to register domains? What am I missing?

The monthly $8 plan is for DNS service. The other fees listed are for yearly domain registrations. The language could certainly be more clear around that.

Re: Faster, More Awesome GitHub Pages

#47

Interesting how ALIAS records are becoming a de-facto DNS protocol feature. Despite not having even an RFC draft proposing their existence, GitHub recommends using ALIAS records, and large players (e.g. AWS, Dyn, and DNSSimple IIRC, as well as us) now support adding ALIAS records to a domain. I wonder why ALIAS took hold but DNAME and ANAME records were never widely supported despite actually making it into a few RFC…

> (Disclaimer: Namecast (http://www.namecast.net) supports ALIAS records as well, so I have an abnormal interest in what was otherwise a small part of the article.)

Kudos, this is one of the most subtle advertising comments I've seen yet.

Re: Faster, More Awesome GitHub Pages

#48
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this is a common problem for CDNs, as you can never guarantee the DNS server that's asking for your CNAME is close to the cache servers that you want to deliver your end-user content; This is the case, and it's a significant problem - especially for people who use Google's DNS server or OpenDNS There is an experimental, but reasonably widely deployed[1] solution available though. I'd be surprised if the first CDN cac…

Google's public DNS (8.8.8.8) uses anycast as well. https://developers.google.com/speed/public-dns/faq#anycast

I'll just put this here: Anycast doesn't _necessarily_ break CDNs in the way this thread has been implying. Ideally you've got some sort of loose unicast rpf in place for your DNS nodes, and have them receive DNS queries on the anycast address, and send outbound queries out of a local interface so that the NS you're querying knows where you're located... but this is getting a bit far afield of GitHub's new features in any case. PM me if you want to here me blather about DNS and CDNs more. And cross your fingers that edns0-subnet gets implemented sometime soon.

Re: Faster, More Awesome GitHub Pages

#49

Please GitHub add https (with SPDY) support. Willing to pay for this.

MediaCrush hosts our blog [1] on GitHub pages, and we proxy it [2] with nginx to add SSL. [1] https://blog.mediacru.sh [2] https://github.com/MediaCrush/MediaCrush/blob/master/config/... And the pages: https://github.com/MediaCrush/mediacrush.github.io

Why not just host it yourself then? You can get precompiled gzip and sane caching. The only reason I can think of to use GitHub Pages is not wanting to pay for a proper host.

Re: Faster, More Awesome GitHub Pages

#50
post #47

Interesting how ALIAS records are becoming a de-facto DNS protocol feature. Despite not having even an RFC draft proposing their existence, GitHub recommends using ALIAS records, and large players (e.g. AWS, Dyn, and DNSSimple IIRC, as well as us) now support adding ALIAS records to a domain. I wonder why ALIAS took hold but DNAME and ANAME records were never widely supported despite actually making it into a few RFC…

> (Disclaimer: Namecast ( http://www.namecast.net ) supports ALIAS records as well, so I have an abnormal interest in what was otherwise a small part of the article.) Kudos, this is one of the most subtle advertising comments I've seen yet.

Sorry, it really wasn't meant to be. (And I think anyone "advertising" on HN in that way would be dealt with pretty quickly.)

Mine was originally one of the first comments on the article, and it turns out lots of people have had questions about ALIAS records since then, because "what's an ALIAS record?". (If you read the comments, I've actually been advertising for our "competitors" if anything - I think I got DNSMadeEasy a sale today ;).

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