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IT Vista to Grind the Net to a Halt
Tim Thorpe (Blog) - September 7, 2006 12:56 PM
Print E-mail del.icio.us 51 comment(s) - last by Wwhat.. on Sep 11 at 8:23 AM
Windows Vista's DNS implementation may have adverse effects on the Internet's performance according to some

Paul Mockapetris, one of the principal inventors of DNS is warning that Windows Vista might grind net traffic to a halt if left unchecked.   Because Vista supports two different versions of TCP/IP (v4 and v6) Mockapetris believes that the introduction of the new operating system will cause a significant increase in DNS traffic and may bring DNS servers already running near capacity to their knees. This would have a significant impact on the Internet’s ability to function as DNS requests could become unanswered by the swamped servers.

Some experts disagree with Mockapetris and believe this might be a FUD campaign to stir up support for Nomium, a vendor of DNS products were Mockapetris works as chief scientist. Microsoft has said that while vista may cause an increase in DNS traffic it won’t be to the extent that it cripples the DNS system.   

The problem lies in the way that Vista utilizes the IP stack, according to Mockapetris "[Windows Vista] is going to try a DNS lookup for the IPv6 address and then a DNS lookup for the IPv4 address,"  this uses more of the DNS system and until supply is increased thing might get slower.  

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Not a dumptruck.
By Frank M on 9/7/2006 1:38:15 PM , Rating: 3
Why doesn't Microsoft understand that the internet is a series of tubes, which can be clogged?




RE: Not a dumptruck.
By TomZ on 9/7/2006 1:40:37 PM , Rating: 4
Tubes getting clogged is not really a good analogy. Better would be trying to force more "stuff" through than the tube can handle.


RE: Not a dumptruck.
By shoRunner on 9/7/2006 1:50:28 PM , Rating: 2
you missed that joke


RE: Not a dumptruck.
By Seymourbbuts on 9/7/2006 7:11:53 PM , Rating: 2
Well MS could just send a super fast power ball through the tubes to unclog them. lol


RE: Not a dumptruck.
By TwistyKat on 9/8/2006 7:08:35 AM , Rating: 4
RE: Not a dumptruck.
By SunAngel on 9/8/06, Rating: 0
RE: Not a dumptruck.
By Master Kenobi (blog) on 9/7/2006 1:43:04 PM , Rating: 4
quote:
lol ... IPv4 will always work, if you do IPv$ first you will never get to do IPv6 ... :) Stop criticizing MS for every measure they take ...

^-QFT

Leave Microsoft alone. They did it right, it should check against IPv6 before IPv4. Otherwise you would never get to any of the IPv6 sites, unless you could specify. This way it checks against v6, if it doesn't get a return it queries again against the older protocol to see if that will work. Theres nothing wrong with that, infact it makes perfect sense, and as the net migrates to v6 this will become a moot point.

Leave MS alone, they did nothing wrong here, infact they did everything right with this idea.


RE: Not a dumptruck.
By mindless1 on 9/8/2006 12:04:59 AM , Rating: 1
Err, yes there is something wrong with that, did you bother to read any of the text this thread started under?

So what you really mean is, YOU want this, therefore it's ok. Fine, so long as you have your own private internet. Otherwise it's a bit naive to think we should want what you do.

What MS did wrong is what MS always does wrong, starting out with everything and the kitchen sink running out of (most people's) control. Will the average user realize there's two DNS lookups? Better question, has the average user any idea of what v4 is, let alone v6?


RE: Not a dumptruck.
By ChronoReverse on 9/8/2006 12:31:09 AM , Rating: 3
Let me ask you this. If your NIC had an IPV6 address (which is the only time Vista will do the IPv6 lookup) don't you think it would be a good idea to do an IPv6 lookup first before falling back to IPv4? Because won't it be kinda pointless to have an IPv6 address unless you're going to use it?


For everyone who is assigned an IPv4 address, it'll just do the IPv4 lookup.


RE: Not a dumptruck.
By hyperbolicparody on 9/9/2006 11:26:24 PM , Rating: 3
No, the protocol is right. You should try IPv6 first, then IPv4. Part of the "magic" of backwards compatable and slow upgrades is protocol dump-down (look at your 802.11G card, it attempts to negotiate at g first, and if it doesn't succeed it'll dump down into b and possibly slower).

As another poster stated, if you have a IPv6 IP you should really try the IPv6 resolution first. Multicasting and Broadcasting slow down the net too, except they don't travel past the logical levels of distribution. The worst affected will be service providers giving out IPv6 addy's who don't bother to do ANY planning.

Microsoft may have a history of bad IMPLIMENTATION, but we can't speak on that yet, can we?


RE: Not a dumptruck.
By retrospooty on 9/7/2006 2:03:24 PM , Rating: 2
This article is correct... The part about it being FUD to stir up business.

Relax and continue to breath, all is well.


RE: Not a dumptruck.
By h0kiez on 9/7/2006 2:26:12 PM , Rating: 2
Lol. I didn't miss it.

Seriously though...it's scary to think that we have legislators that know less about technology than my parents do passing laws that affect us so much.


RE: Not a dumptruck.
By Poximex on 9/7/2006 2:28:59 PM , Rating: 2
Haha, I got it.


RE: Not a dumptruck.
By Chernobyl68 on 9/7/2006 5:19:57 PM , Rating: 2
lol that was awesome....


RE: Not a dumptruck.
By Soviet Robot on 9/8/2006 3:23:55 AM , Rating: 2
I know! Just the other day my mother sent me an internet and I didn't get it for a week!


Minor Typo
By darkfoon on 9/8/2006 5:41:40 AM , Rating: 4
Tim, not to be a spelling-nazi, but
quote:
products were Mockapetris

should be where

It's not like it's the most common spelling error I've seen on the 'net, because nobody else seemed to care about it, and probably just corrected it in their minds while reading.
Ah, the human brain, an amazing thing.




RE: Minor Typo
By TomZ on 9/8/2006 12:56:55 PM , Rating: 2
That would be a diction (word choice) error, not really a spelling error.


RE: Minor Typo
By mindless1 on 9/9/2006 2:03:19 PM , Rating: 1
That would be a typo, or can you not see this?
Do you often hear people talking who say "were" when they should've meant "where"? Of course not, THINK before you post.


RE: Minor Typo
By avijay on 9/9/2006 11:57:54 AM , Rating: 2
quote:
products were Mockapetris

should be where


I agree!! Its a very common typo.


RE: Minor Typo
By mindless1 on 9/9/2006 2:00:44 PM , Rating: 1
Let's be clear about something. The omission of an "h" is a minor thing, we can get past it and read the sentence. On the other hand, YOUR POST about it creates an order of magnitude more disturbance, waste of time, is far worse than a typo.

Congratulations on being senseless.


RE: Minor Typo
By Tim Thorpe on 9/10/2006 4:31:22 AM , Rating: 2
Thanks for pointing that out, it got overlooked,

Tim


RE: Minor Typo
By kfonda on 9/10/2006 9:37:03 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
Let's be clear about something. The omission of an "h" is a minor thing,


I'd be willing to bet that the 'h' wasn't ommitted. It just got stuck in one of the tubes. Keep an eye out for it, it could take as much as a week for that 'h' to come through.:-)

P.S. - Don't take this seriously, I wouldn't really bet on it because internet gambling is evil. :-)

P.P.S. - I'm sorry, I couldn't resist...


wrong
By Missing Ghost on 9/7/2006 4:16:12 PM , Rating: 2
dns uses asymetric load balancing. If there is too much load, you just add a server. This guy is wrong.




RE: wrong
By nerdboy on 9/7/2006 4:59:12 PM , Rating: 2
I agree, but i think it would be cool if microsoft gave you the option to diable the ipv6 lookup. that would be better.


RE: wrong
By Sahrin on 9/7/2006 5:12:39 PM , Rating: 3
OK, we'll route all the "I can't get access to X website" (because it's IPv6 based) support calls to you.


RE: wrong
By ChronoReverse on 9/7/2006 5:50:13 PM , Rating: 2
You do have the option. It won't even do a IPV6 lookup if you don't have an IPV6 addresss.

This plain bull.


RE: wrong
By GreenEnvt on 9/7/2006 9:05:23 PM , Rating: 2
They do, goto network properies, and uncheck the IPv6 checkbox, now that was complicated!


Good lord
By stash on 9/7/2006 1:41:15 PM , Rating: 2
This is really stupid. I certainly hope that DNS isn't as fragile as they make it sound.




RE: Good lord
By Vidmar on 9/7/2006 3:27:55 PM , Rating: 2
Tried using a Comcast DNS server lately??? Slow as molasses would be a complement.


RE: Good lord
By stash on 9/7/2006 9:26:35 PM , Rating: 2
I use them every day. The DC in my house forwards up to them, and I haven't noticed any issues.

68.87.73.242 and 68.87.71.226


RE: Good lord
By Ytsejamer1 on 9/8/2006 10:19:37 AM , Rating: 2
I use OpenDNS instead of Comcast's and so far it has worked remarkably well. I've fat-fingered a few website addresses and it caught it warning me that if I go there, Malware and spyware will likely great me. It offered a link to the real address. Pretty slick stuff.


THE WORLD IS ENDING
By Mithan on 9/7/2006 6:24:58 PM , Rating: 2
Is it just me or do all these naysaying idiots that come out of the woodwork saying the world will end get proven to be...idiots.





RE: THE WORLD IS ENDING
By docmilo on 9/8/2006 12:44:34 AM , Rating: 2
I was telling a long time linux user about this article today and he laughed. He told me linux has been using IPv6 for about 10 years now. Well, I guess linux just doesn't have the volume following of Windows.


RE: THE WORLD IS ENDING
By mindless1 on 9/9/2006 1:58:39 PM , Rating: 2
Actually the idiots are people like yourself who read a clear set of facts and not "liking" those facts, try to make up a nonsense reinterpretation of what they meant to try and twist it into what seems a less realistic scenario.

The FACT is, somebody has to bear the cost of this, they wouldn't just throw away more investment into DNS until it's needed. So there is a real potential that this will overwhelm machines built only to maintain the current needs. That's not the end of the world but it does mean others will have to bear the burden of MS's decision.


RE: THE WORLD IS ENDING
By Helbore on 9/9/2006 2:17:52 PM , Rating: 2
Well Microsoft didn't invent the IPv6 protocol, nor did they make most of the world use up nearly all of the v4 adressses. Simple truth is, the internet needs to switch to IPv6 and prefably before the existing namespace runs out.

MS are only providing an implementation of IPv6 in their new operating system and damn right they should, too. If they didn't we'd be shouting at them for holding technology back. We'd also be kicking them if Vista used IPv4 as its primary. That would be daft, implement a new protocol and have it bypass in in favour of the older version, which will always work as long as IPv4 remains on the 'net. We wouldn't want all the world's OS's switching over to IPv6 only when v4 is finally disabled. You want to talk about sudden internet overload? That would be it happening, right then!

Seriously, I don't see this even being a problem. Most people will not haveIPv6 configured for internet access, unless their ISPs are doing it via DHCP. If they aren't then no problem, the request won't even occur. If they are, then obviously the ISP WANTS their users to be using IPv6 and if that is the case they damn well have better invested in the network to support it. If they haven't done, it is their own fault to switching to service they couldn't deliver.


Home users using IPV6? I don't think so.
By AdamJB on 9/7/2006 2:15:30 PM , Rating: 3
How many ISPs give their users IPV6 addresses? None that I know of. If any are doing it, it's a minority. Furthermore, how many home users are behind SOHO routers that only do IPV4? An awfull lot. Most or all of the Vista PCs in use in homes are going to be doing IPV4 only. The Vista IPV6 stack will be there (it's installed by default), but it will be using a self assigned APIPA address with no IPV6 connectivity to any DNS servers. I think this is a bunch of hype over nothing.




By Vidmar on 9/7/2006 3:25:26 PM , Rating: 2
Ever wonder how many ISP would enable IPv6 if they could?? Most of them! In fact Comcast has been chomping at the bit to get to IPv6 (they are almost out of IPv4 address space), but since the majority of end users would have to make changes on their XP systems for IPv6 to work they can't.

ISPs like Comcast are the ones pushing for Vista and IPv6.


By mikecel79 on 9/7/2006 3:26:10 PM , Rating: 2
You forgot one important piece of the puzzle here. What if the server (http, ftp, etc) has an IPv6 address only? Now you can't resolve it. It doesn't matter if you have an IPv4 address. If you want to get to an IPv6 host you need IPv6 installed and the ability to query it over DNS.


Brain cells will grind to a halt...
By INeedCache on 9/8/2006 4:00:10 AM , Rating: 3
Probably part of the so-called experts that said all of our computers would die on 1/1/2000, and the world will grind to a halt. Yea, that happened.




By TomZ on 9/8/2006 12:55:09 PM , Rating: 3
Well, in this case, the alarmism caused a huge investment to be made to fix systems prior to the 1/1/2000 deadline, which is the primary reason you didn't see a lot of problems then.


By mindless1 on 9/9/2006 1:54:39 PM , Rating: 1
... and in the earlier days it was thought spam wouldn't be much of a burden either but in hindsight....


Windows Vista SP?
By mryoder on 9/7/2006 2:38:22 PM , Rating: 2
I'm sure this will be solved in the first service pack. lol




RE: Windows Vista SP?
By ChronoReverse on 9/7/2006 2:42:53 PM , Rating: 2
I should certainly hope not. This is the way it should be implemented. Otherwise IPV6 will never come along.


heres a thought...
By kattanna on 9/7/2006 3:34:18 PM , Rating: 3
quote:
and may bring DNS servers already running near capacity to their knees


if the servers are already running near capacity..how about you bring some new beefer ones online...

just one of those "wild" thoughts...





good
By Wwhat on 9/11/2006 8:14:40 AM , Rating: 3
Let's face it, the only way the world EVER moves to ipv6 is if microsoft forces it, and this will encourage DNS upgrades and IPv6 support, so it's a good thing.
As for calling it microsoftbashing, that's your interpretation, he states what he think will happen to the system if vista is widely used, so it's up to the reader to read a criticism of the DNS servers or a criticism of microsoft in it, or neither but merely a warning and observation.




Nothing to see hear...
By ktlewis02 on 9/7/2006 3:45:36 PM , Rating: 2
Analysts are always saying that such and such will break the internet (for example, the World Cup in summer 06). Nothing bad has happened yet. When the servers get too loaded I guess they will just have to set up more.




?
By Visual on 9/8/2006 1:44:01 AM , Rating: 2
while i agree that this is fud and all... it makes me curious, why was the dns protocol not made with the option to automatically return the v4 ips in case v6 was not found? then all can be done with just one query.




one more thing
By Wwhat on 9/11/2006 8:23:45 AM , Rating: 2
DNS is of course cached a lot, both in windows and by your local ISP, so if an ISP makes sure it's not running at 99% capacity normally and watches the traffic like it should for trafficvolume to upgrade if need be there's no real issue.




IPv6 first then IPv4
By Shadowself on 9/7/06, Rating: -1
RE: IPv6 first then IPv4
By cgrecu77 on 9/7/2006 1:20:45 PM , Rating: 5
lol ... IPv4 will always work, if you do IPv$ first you will never get to do IPv6 ... :) Stop criticizing MS for every measure they take ...


RE: IPv6 first then IPv4
By justinf on 9/7/2006 1:21:24 PM , Rating: 2
That might change in a year or two. (more like 4 or5 years but still)


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