OpenDNS vs. Earthlink
I’d heard about OpenDNS being significantly faster than stock DNS servers, mostly because of more aggressive caching. I followed their instructions for configuring the service and ran a few queries with dig to see how it performed against my stock Earthlink DNS servers, the venerable itchy and scratchy.
Results after the cut.
Results
Here are two queries using Earthlink servers:
elli:~ phil$ time dig facebook.com && time dig apple.com ; <<>> DiG 9.3.4 <<>> facebook.com ;; global options: printcmd ;; Got answer: ;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 50925 ;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 2, AUTHORITY: 4, ADDITIONAL: 4 ;; QUESTION SECTION: ;facebook.com. IN A ;; ANSWER SECTION: facebook.com. 1700 IN A 69.63.176.140 facebook.com. 1700 IN A 69.63.178.11 ;; AUTHORITY SECTION: facebook.com. 12269 IN NS dns05.sf2p.tfbnw.net. facebook.com. 12269 IN NS dns04.sf2p.tfbnw.net. facebook.com. 12269 IN NS ns1.facebook.com. facebook.com. 12269 IN NS ns2.facebook.com. ;; ADDITIONAL SECTION: ns2.facebook.com. 3207 IN A 204.74.67.132 dns05.sf2p.tfbnw.net. 131959 IN A 69.63.176.9 dns04.sf2p.tfbnw.net. 131577 IN A 69.63.176.8 ns1.facebook.com. 3207 IN A 204.74.66.132 ;; Query time: 32 msec ;; SERVER: 207.69.188.185#53(207.69.188.185) ;; WHEN: Wed Jul 23 11:23:35 2008 ;; MSG SIZE rcvd: 216 ; <<>> DiG 9.3.4 <<>> apple.com ;; global options: printcmd ;; Got answer: ;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 48776 ;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 2, AUTHORITY: 6, ADDITIONAL: 5 ;; QUESTION SECTION: ;apple.com. IN A ;; ANSWER SECTION: apple.com. 124 IN A 17.112.152.57 apple.com. 124 IN A 17.149.160.49 ;; AUTHORITY SECTION: apple.com. 92770 IN NS nserver2.apple.com. apple.com. 92770 IN NS nserver.asia.apple.com. apple.com. 92770 IN NS nserver.apple.com. apple.com. 92770 IN NS nserver4.apple.com. apple.com. 92770 IN NS nserver.euro.apple.com. apple.com. 92770 IN NS nserver3.apple.com. ;; ADDITIONAL SECTION: nserver.asia.apple.com. 85265 IN A 17.82.254.3 nserver.euro.apple.com. 85934 IN A 17.72.133.64 nserver2.apple.com. 172562 IN A 17.254.0.59 nserver3.apple.com. 431998 IN A 17.112.144.50 nserver4.apple.com. 172562 IN A 17.112.144.59 ;;; Query time: 32 msec ;; SERVER: 207.69.188.185#53(207.69.188.185) ;; WHEN: Wed Jul 23 11:23:35 2008 ;; MSG SIZE rcvd: 284
And with OpenDNS:
elli:~ phil$ time dig facebook.com && time dig apple.com ; <<>> DiG 9.3.4 <<>> facebook.com ;; global options: printcmd ;; Got answer: ;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 3356 ;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 2, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 0 ;; QUESTION SECTION: ;facebook.com. IN A ;; ANSWER SECTION: facebook.com. 2606 IN A 69.63.176.140 facebook.com. 2606 IN A 69.63.178.11 ;; Query time: 48 msec ;; SERVER: 208.67.222.222#53(208.67.222.222) ;; WHEN: Wed Jul 23 11:22:12 2008 ;; MSG SIZE rcvd: 62 ; <<>> DiG 9.3.4 <<>> apple.com ;; global options: printcmd ;; Got answer: ;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 36024 ;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 2, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 0 ;; QUESTION SECTION: ;apple.com. IN A ;; ANSWER SECTION: apple.com. 2738 IN A 17.149.160.49 apple.com. 2738 IN A 17.112.152.57 ;; Query time: 46 msec ;; SERVER: 208.67.222.222#53(208.67.222.222) ;; WHEN: Wed Jul 23 11:22:13 2008 ;; MSG SIZE rcvd: 59
Analysis
It may be that OpenDNS provides the faster response on subsequent requests, which would make sense if caching is their primary means of a boost. lookupd caches aggressively locally anyway, though, so that’s a moot point.
After learning about Earthlink’s search and ad-free DNS servers, I’m sold on what I already have.