Categories
IPv6

DNS Exit Breaks IPv6

We were troubleshooting DNS for a customer who has the domains hosted over at DNS Exit over the last couple of days and couldn’t seem to nail down why we here at Rollernet couldn’t resolve their DNS reliably, if at all. After much extended testing, we eventually tested from a site that was IPv4 only and discovered this:

;; ADDITIONAL SECTION:
ns1.dnsexit.com.        28800   IN      A       69.57.160.118
ns1.dnsexit.com.        28800   IN      AAAA    ::1
ns2.dnsexit.com.        59400   IN      A       64.182.102.188
ns2.dnsexit.com.        59400   IN      AAAA    ::1
ns3.dnsexit.com.        57600   IN      A       67.214.175.73
ns3.dnsexit.com.        57600   IN      AAAA    ::1
ns4.dnsexit.com.        57600   IN      A       67.214.161.154
ns4.dnsexit.com.        57600   IN      AAAA    ::1

There’s the problem: delegations to the IPv6 loopback address. This is not something we would ever expect to see. It can, in fact, be damaging because an IPv6 resolver may try to query itself (localhost). As such, we are strongly recommending to all of our customers (plus anyone in general who is interested in working with IPv6 or may use an IPv6 network) to stay clear of DNS Exit at this time.

We try not to recommend one provider over another, but in this instance the localhost AAAA delegations are too egregious of an error to ignore. As far as we are aware only DNS Exit does this, so any of their competitors should be a suitable replacement.

Categories
Announcements Changes

New: Alternate IP Filters for Outbound Mail

Our outbound accounts have long been configurable with one IPv4 and one IPv6 address or host name lookup (A or AAAA). A couple weeks ago a situation was brought to our attention that caused a conflict: end sites with a different failover IP. In order for these sites to work, you’d have to log in and change the filter to the failover IP and then back again later to the primary IP.

To fix this we have just released a new addition of an alternate IP filter setting for both IPv4 and IPv6 addresses.

Alternate IP Filter Settings

This setting works in conjunction with the original primary filter setting to specifically resolve the issue of business customer sites with a failover circuit, and is available on accounts with a service level of Standard and above.

Categories
Uncategorized

VeriSign Price Increases

Effective July 1, 2010, VeriSign has increased the pricing for .com and .net registrations. As such, our new prices for these domains will be:

.com    $11.60
.net    $9.50

Only these two VeriSign TLDs are affected. All others remain unchanged.

Categories
Announcements Changes

New: Envelope Address Character Settings

We’ve made some enhancements to our Client Validity Checks filter: configurable envelope address characters and a multi-domain settings mode. Although all 7bit ASCII characters are technically allowed by RFC, many of the uncommon ones are misused by broken mail servers, viruses, and poorly written mass mailers.

Envelope Address Characters Configuration

If desired, some of the most commonly abused characters may be rejected. You can also add a whitelist rule for Client Validity Checks for trusted sources.

We’ve also added a multi-domain settings mode that’s identical to the other filters that offer this feature so that you can update some or all of your domains without having to waste time configuring them individually.

Categories
IPv6

IANA IPv4 Free Pool is Now at 6.25%

From the ARIN-announce mailing list:

ARIN has been allocating IPv6 addresses since 1999 and has been actively advocating the need to deploy IPv6. In 2007, the ARIN Board of Trustees resolved to educate and inform the Internet community regarding IPv4 depletion and the increasing need to adopt IPv6. This resolution became part of a larger IPv6 outreach campaign to encourage those currently running IPv4 to begin adopting IPv6. In April of 2009, ARIN contacted, by certified letter, the CEOs of organizations that currently hold IPv4 resources in its region to raise executive awareness of IPv4 depletion and IPv6 adoption. To keep up with ARIN’s current outreach activities and locations, please visit http://www.teamARIN.net/calendar.

Without IPv6, the Internet’s expansion and innovation could be limited. Delaying IPv6 deployment may strain the work of Internet operators, application developers, and end users everywhere. Furthermore, organizations whose business model is dependent on availability of IP addresses may find their growth limited without adopting production IPv6.

There are many ways to make your organization’s services available using IPv6, depending on your network setup and the services you have deployed. ARIN hosts an IPv6 Wiki to facilitate discussion and information sharing on IPv6 adoption topics and issues, which can be found at http://www.getipv6.info. If you have not already, now is the time to determine how your services will grow and be maintained using IPv6 addresses.

Regards,

John Curran
President and CEO
American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN)

Roller Network offers standard IPv6 enabled colocation and hosting services for the next generation internet, today. If your provider does not support IPv6, consider switching to one that does.