Comparison of Google Public DNS and Open DNS response

Posted by Anirudh on December 5, 2009; This entry is filed under technology.
Tags: , ,

Google announced that it’s making 2 DNS servers available publicly. The servers are 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 . They’ve also given configuration instructions on their DNS page. I configured my /etc/resolv.conf to refer to Google’s DNS. Before this I ran some quick tests using dig to compare it with OpenDNS.

<br />
$ dig @208.67.222.222 gingerjoos.com</p>
<p>; <<>> DiG 9.4.2 <<>> @208.67.222.222 gingerjoos.com<br />
; (1 server found)<br />
;; global options:  printcmd<br />
;; Got answer:<br />
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 1273<br />
;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 1, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 0</p>
<p>;; QUESTION SECTION:<br />
;gingerjoos.com.                        IN      A</p>
<p>;; ANSWER SECTION:<br />
gingerjoos.com.         14400   IN      A       208.113.199.196</p>
<p>;; Query time: 751 msec<br />
;; SERVER: 208.67.222.222#53(208.67.222.222)<br />
;; WHEN: Fri Dec  4 09:13:58 2009<br />
;; MSG SIZE  rcvd: 48</p>
<p>$ dig @8.8.8.8 gingerjoos.com</p>
<p>; <<>> DiG 9.4.2 <<>> @8.8.8.8 gingerjoos.com<br />
; (1 server found)<br />
;; global options:  printcmd<br />
;; Got answer:<br />
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 2594<br />
;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 1, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 0</p>
<p>;; QUESTION SECTION:<br />
;gingerjoos.com.                        IN      A</p>
<p>;; ANSWER SECTION:<br />
gingerjoos.com.         14400   IN      A       208.113.199.196</p>
<p>;; Query time: 616 msec<br />
;; SERVER: 8.8.8.8#53(8.8.8.8)<br />
;; WHEN: Fri Dec  4 09:14:09 2009<br />
;; MSG SIZE  rcvd: 48</p>
<p>$ dig @8.8.4.4 gingerjoos.com</p>
<p>; <<>> DiG 9.4.2 <<>> @8.8.4.4 gingerjoos.com<br />
; (1 server found)<br />
;; global options:  printcmd<br />
;; Got answer:<br />
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 34741<br />
;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 1, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 0</p>
<p>;; QUESTION SECTION:<br />
;gingerjoos.com.                        IN      A</p>
<p>;; ANSWER SECTION:<br />
gingerjoos.com.         14321   IN      A       208.113.199.196</p>
<p>;; Query time: 123 msec<br />
;; SERVER: 8.8.4.4#53(8.8.4.4)<br />
;; WHEN: Fri Dec  4 09:15:28 2009<br />
;; MSG SIZE  rcvd: 48<br />

Dig allows you to directly query a DNS server and get its reply. It shows stats from that query – response. The stat we’re interested in is this one

;; Query time: 123 msec

The IP 208.67.222.222 is the address of the OpenDNS server. Let’s try one more query

</p>
<p>$ dig @208.67.222.222 mec.ac.in</p>
<p>; <<>> DiG 9.4.2 <<>> @208.67.222.222 mec.ac.in<br />
; (1 server found)<br />
;; global options:  printcmd<br />
;; Got answer:<br />
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 44308<br />
;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 1, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 0</p>
<p>;; QUESTION SECTION:<br />
;mec.ac.in.                     IN      A</p>
<p>;; ANSWER SECTION:<br />
mec.ac.in.              604800  IN      A       210.212.232.132</p>
<p>;; Query time: 389 msec<br />
;; SERVER: 208.67.222.222#53(208.67.222.222)<br />
;; WHEN: Sat Dec  5 12:38:57 2009<br />
;; MSG SIZE  rcvd: 43</p>
<p>$ dig @8.8.8.8 mec.ac.in</p>
<p>; <<>> DiG 9.4.2 <<>> @8.8.8.8 mec.ac.in<br />
; (1 server found)<br />
;; global options:  printcmd<br />
;; Got answer:<br />
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 56600<br />
;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 1, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 0</p>
<p>;; QUESTION SECTION:<br />
;mec.ac.in.                     IN      A</p>
<p>;; ANSWER SECTION:<br />
mec.ac.in.              160448  IN      A       210.212.232.131</p>
<p>;; Query time: 121 msec<br />
;; SERVER: 8.8.8.8#53(8.8.8.8)<br />
;; WHEN: Sat Dec  5 12:39:06 2009<br />
;; MSG SIZE  rcvd: 43</p>
<p>

You can try more queries and see for yourself. At least as of now Google DNS seems to be faster.

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