libsodium.org DNSSEC Outage: 2018-01-18

Date: January 18, 2018

Overview

This page gives some details on the libsodium.org DNSSEC outage on January 18, 2018.

Timeline / DNSViz

DNSSEC Debugger

Unlike DNSViz, Verisign's DNSSEC Debugger doesn't archive results, so here's a screenshot of my web browser's output from January 18, 2018:

January 18, 2018 libsodium.org DNSSEC outage

Google Public DNS: with and without DNSSEC

DNSSEC can be disabled in queries via the CD (checking disabled) bit. Let's compare DNS queries with and without DNSSEC. With DNSSEC, DNS queries result in SERVFAIL:

$ dig +dnssec ns libsodium.org. @8.8.8.8

; <<>> DiG 9.4.2-P2 <<>> +dnssec ns libsodium.org. @8.8.8.8
;; global options: printcmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: SERVFAIL, id: 55690
;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 0, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 1

;; OPT PSEUDOSECTION:
; EDNS: version: 0, flags: do; udp: 512
;; QUESTION SECTION:
;libsodium.org. IN NS

;; Query time: 145 msec
;; SERVER: 8.8.8.8#53(8.8.8.8)
;; WHEN: Thu Jan 18 09:45:40 2018
;; MSG SIZE rcvd: 42

You have to disable DNSSEC to make DNS queries work:

$ dig +cd ns libsodium.org. @8.8.8.8

; <<>> DiG 9.4.2-P2 <<>> +cd ns libsodium.org. @8.8.8.8
;; global options: printcmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 57042
;; flags: qr rd ra cd; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 2, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 0

;; QUESTION SECTION:
;libsodium.org. IN NS

;; ANSWER SECTION:
libsodium.org. 21599 IN NS free.ns.c9x.org.
libsodium.org. 21599 IN NS recital.ns.c9x.org.

;; Query time: 146 msec
;; SERVER: 8.8.8.8#53(8.8.8.8)
;; WHEN: Thu Jan 18 09:45:40 2018
;; MSG SIZE rcvd: 79

Zonemaster

drill trace

Since DNSSEC contains so much garbage, I put the complete drill trace into its own file with the relevant portion below (emphasis added):

;; Domain: libsodium.org.
;; Signature ok but no chain to a trusted key or ds record
[S] libsodium.org. 86400 IN DNSKEY 256 3 13 ;{id = 62165 (zsk), size = 256b}
libsodium.org. 86400 IN DNSKEY 257 3 13 ;{id = 48738 (ksk), size = 256b}
[S] libsodium.org. 10000 IN A 37.59.238.213
;;[S] self sig OK; [B] bogus; [T] trusted

Logfile examples