public DNS servers

[pctechxp]

Hi

To earn my living I provide technical support to a rather well known distance learning institution's student and tutor user base using consumer ISPs

This involves providing support for accessing websites held on over 4,000 servers.

Now and again we get odd problems where x,y or z site seems to drop off the web for certain users or groups of users.

I can sometimes work this out to be incorrect DNS records at their ISP.

My question is, is there any public DNS servers that I can direct them to, i.e. walk them through reconfig of heir TCP/IP stack in an effort to get around this problem that wont cause them problems with their ISP?

Cheers for the advice

Mitch aka pctechxp

[dave87]

I think DynDNS & NoIP are what you're looking for, tho I am not sure...

[Moby-Dick]

most ISP's will allow queries to their DNS caches.

DNS is after all a public service - however you dont want to be querying the root DNS servers.

Try this lot for a start

United Kingdom

* AOL
205.188.146.145



* Blueyonder/Telewest (Cable)
193.38.113.3
194.177.157.4



* BTInternet
194.73.73.172
194.73.73.173
194.72.9.44
194.72.9.38 (Cardiff, S.Wales)
194.72.9.39 (Cardiff, S.Wales)



* Bulldog Broadband
Ns3.bulldogdsl.com . 83.146.21.5 (South)
Ns4.bulldogdsl.com . 83.146.21.6 (South)
Ns5.bulldogdsl.com . 212.158.248.5 (North)
Ns6.bulldogdsl.com . 212.158.248.6 (North)



* Nildram (ADSL)
213.208.106.212
213.208.106.213



* NTL (Cable) and Virgin.net (ADSL)
194.168.4.100
194.168.8.100



* Pipex (ADSL)
62.241.162.35
62.189.34.83



* Silvermead (Satellite, DSL, ISDN)
62.55.96.226
62.55.96.109 (unchecked)



* Telewest (Cable)
62.31.176.39
194.117.134.19



* Tiscali, Screaming.net, Worldonline, Lineone
212.74.112.66
212.74.112.67
212.74.114.129 (Cambridge)
212.74.114.193 (Cambridge)



* Wanadoo UK (ADSL)
195.92.195.94
195.92.195.95



* Zen Internet
Primary DNS: 212.23.8.1
Secondary DNS: 212.23.3.1

I used to use a combination of NTL and ZEN's DNS servers.

[pctechxp]

Thanks Moby Dick

[peterb]

I think Zens are only available to ZEN users now. (Changed about 6 months ago)

[ikonia]

I wouldn't point at other ISP's DNS servers for lookups. Most are locking them down to be their network range only.

If you have problems with DNS records the problem can only be
a.) the record is wrong/changed and you've not updated your dns servers yet - in which case mail the dns record host master and ask him to alter the zone settings.
b.) your dns server is setup wrong - in which case fix it.

[Moby-Dick]

but this if for home user who would not have a local DNS server. ISP's putting ACl's' on their DNS servers is a bit of a pain , it used to be a usefull fix to keep a few DNS IP's handy for when a given ISP was having problems for example.

[Tak]

OpenDNS is pretty decent, publicly accessible and free. It also does URL spelling correction and phishing site blocking.

[FatalSaviour]

OpenDNS is pretty decent, publicly accessible and free.

Thanks to all, (esp M-D) for this.

I've had problems with our own domain dropping off our ISPs DNS from time to time, so this should help a lot.

Thanks once again.

Ray

[Moby-Dick]

OpenDNS is pretty decent, publicly accessible and free. It also does URL spelling correction and phishing site blocking.

Looks very good! be even better when they get their london node online

I came accross the site a while back but for some reason thought it was an "alternate" naming system.