What if DNS goes down? (Info and IP List)

Your computer has no idea what www.google.com is. No clue. It has to go to a DNS server and ask it, "What the hell is this?". The DNS server replies with, "Oh, you need to go to 64.233.183.147."

Your computer needs to translate the address you type into an IP Address. And it needs DNS Servers to do that.

So what do you do if there is no DNS service all of a sudden? You have two choices.

Find another working DNS Server for your computer to use.

-or-

Know the IP addresses of the sites you visit most, and wait for DNS services to be restored.


Here are some alternate DNS Servers you can use.

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www.universaldns.org...

Universal DNS Servers

DNS Server 1 (Primary)
69.111.95.106

DNS Server 2 (Secondary)
206.196.151.153

DNS Server 3 (Tertiary)
69.111.95.107

How do I change my DNS Settings?


Here are the IP addresses of some commonly used websites:

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www.AboveTopSecret.com
75.126.76.151/forum/


SEARCH ENGINES

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www.Google.com
64.233.183.147

www.Live.com
207.46.30.24

www.Yahoo.com
87.248.113.14


MAINSTREAM NEWS

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www.CNN.com
64.236.24.12

www.BBC.co.uk
212.58.253.70


EMAIL / PORTALS

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Hotmail / Windows Live / Windows Passport
65.54.183.203

www.Yahoo.com
87.248.113.14/r/m2/

www.Comcast.net
76.96.54.12/a/

www.Charter.net
64.192.190.12

www.ATT.net
64.192.190.12

www.Earthlink.net
207.217.125.95

www.AOL.com
149.174.135.99


WEATHER

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www.Weather.com
65.212.121.121

www.WeatherUnderground.com
64.243.174.104

www.SpaceWeather.com
72.32.51.87

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DISCLAIMER: I know I left out some technical details - but this post wasnt for those of us in the IT Professional crowd. And yes, we could debate the vulnerabilities and contingency plans regarding the Internet, but that is not the intent of this thread. I simply wanted to give average ATS users a quick easy way to combat loss of DNS services when/if it happens. DNS lookups have been kinda squirrelly the past few days, so I thought a 50-cent Internet Survival Guide was in order.

IP Addresses listed here may change without notice.

[edit on 2/6/2008 by damajikninja]

Very interesting thread. Although I've learnt nothing new I find that you've made a good thread that people should look at. We should all document some I.Ps for our own personal use.

Thank you for the information, I saved those IPs in a text file. This is certainly something useful to know if such an event ever did occur.

One question though, if you have your network settings set to obtain a DNS address automatically, would it choose another if the one you were using suddenly went down?

If your service providers dns goes down, doesn't the next dns server in the network resolve the domain to ip. There has to be hundreds, thousands of dns servers with primary and secondary domain propagation options.

Unless a cable was cut to cause a loss of service, domains should still be accessible as long as there is rerouting capabilities on the network.

For those of you who would like to add to your list of IP's...

Simply go down to the start menu. Click on Run. Type in CMD.

You should see a command prompt in a DOS window.


Two commands to keep track of (example):

ping www.cnn.com

tracert www.cnn.com



The first results give you an IP address and connection. The second an actual route from your computer to the hosting provider a website is on.


Cheers!

I'm a big fan of www.opendns.com... , but if you scan over how it works you can see how easy it is to exploit the service.

I should note that DNS has it's own inherit redudency, not to mention DNS caching used by ISPs. The registries run multiple DNS root servers and are highly secured physically (location/power/hardware) and by software.





[edit on 6-2-2008 by rktspc]

If you have an old pc around you can put a copy of ubuntu server on it and set up a command line only caching name server for emergencies I use one here
it doesn't take that long to set one up you can check it periodically from your windows PC if that is what you use.. using putty you can do all of your admin stuff below is a link to setup a caching name server

www.howtoforge.com...

here is another that is shorter and more to the point but doesn't throw in many of the extras..

there are a lot of extras in the above server setup but follow along and learn something it is kinda fun..well i think but I am kind of a nerd

also keep in mind that this is only good if all the root servers are still functional and if the root servers go down nothing will function properly
there are 13 of them worldwide and they are essential in operation to all functions of the internet so many services rely on them either directly or indirectly..


Respectfully
GEO

[edit on 2/7/2008 by geocom]

[edit on 2/7/2008 by geocom]

[edit on 2/7/2008 by geocom]

Yes, DNS does have built-in redundancy. Yes, if your DNS server goes down, you can probably still get out, at least by switching to another DNS server (as mentioned in my OP). I just knew the tech-heads were going to exalt and uplift the invincible DNS system. Ah well, so much for my Disclaimer.

This thread was more-or-less for average non-computer savvy types, in the event that they loose DNS. The DNS network has fail-over built-in, but if anyone ever wanted to bring down the internet for example, DNS would be the first ting they try to take out, short of cutting cables.

It's just a good idea to have your OWN fail-over and redundancy by keeping a short-list of IPs for sites and DNS servers. You will likely never have to use it, but hey... better to have and not need, than to need and not have.

reply to post by damajikninja

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I personally don't care much for the DNS system it is not all that mighty and invincible and I really didn't see anyone saying anything of the sort..

Just like all other servers or computers for that matter they are vulnerable and at the current time there is no way to fix that.. yes you can try to secure it and fire wall it but there are always holes always always..

Respectfully
GEO

Write about DNS failure, at 10:15pm last night ATS went off the net from my location for about 20 + minutes. I did a trace and it stopped down in the dallas texas datacenter where it timed out. I tried a ping and it also timed out. Looks like ATS home 20 datacenter had a problem.

Loosing the main DNS servers aren't a problem. ALL DNS SERVERS CACHE THE DATA. That's their function. What would hurt worse in a corruption of that data. For example who would know if the real IP address of Google changed from A.B.C.D to a government run look-alike at address E.F.G.H? Not many people look up IP addresses for stuff like this.

Again, you shouldn't fear the "13 main DNS servers" going down. You should fear those 13 being corrupted with fake data that points to websites that "look real".

Imagine if someone in government rerouted the IP address for ATS to another server designed to look just like ATS? The cover story would be a "servers down" or "reconfiguring the database", or "redesigning the website". A good excuse could be "we lost all the name/password combos, and we don't have a backup. You'll have to re-register!"

reply to post by sir_chancealot

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Did you guys read my disclaimer? Here it is again:



[edit on 2/8/2008 by damajikninja]

What is more concerning is what should we do in the event the 'net is ever restricted, or otherwise becomes more hostile than it is at present?