dnsops.gov DNSSEC Outage: 2018-10-13 to 2018-10-15

Updated: October 15, 2018

Overview

This page gives some details on the dnsops.gov DNSSEC outage from October 13 to October 15, 2018. This is the 5th DNSSEC outage of the year for dnsops.gov. It lasted roughly two and a half days.

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 October 13, 2018.

October 13, 2018 dnsops.gov 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 a dnsops.gov. @8.8.8.8

; <<>> DiG 9.4.2-P2 <<>> +dnssec a dnsops.gov. @8.8.8.8
;; global options: printcmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: SERVFAIL, id: 43314
;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 0, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 1

;; OPT PSEUDOSECTION:
; EDNS: version: 0, flags: do; udp: 512
;; QUESTION SECTION:
;dnsops.gov. IN A

;; Query time: 161 msec
;; SERVER: 8.8.8.8#53(8.8.8.8)
;; WHEN: Sat Oct 13 03:09:38 2018
;; MSG SIZE rcvd: 39

You have to disable DNSSEC to make DNS queries work:

$ dig +cd a dnsops.gov. @8.8.8.8

; <<>> DiG 9.4.2-P2 <<>> +cd a dnsops.gov. @8.8.8.8
;; global options: printcmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 7861
;; flags: qr rd ra cd; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 1, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 0

;; QUESTION SECTION:
;dnsops.gov. IN A

;; ANSWER SECTION:
dnsops.gov. 3599 IN A 129.6.100.203

;; Query time: 1093 msec
;; SERVER: 8.8.8.8#53(8.8.8.8)
;; WHEN: Sat Oct 13 03:09:39 2018
;; MSG SIZE rcvd: 44

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: dnsops.gov.
[B] dnsops.gov. 3600 IN DNSKEY 256 3 8 ;{id = 16611 (zsk), size = 1024b}
dnsops.gov. 3600 IN DNSKEY 257 3 8 ;{id = 31580 (ksk), size = 2048b}
dnsops.gov. 3600 IN DNSKEY 256 3 8 ;{id = 2118 (zsk), size = 1024b}
dnsops.gov. 3600 IN DNSKEY 257 3 8 ;{id = 32917 (ksk), size = 2048b}
[B] dnsops.gov. 3600 IN A 129.6.100.203
;; Error: No keys with the keytag and algorithm from the RRSIG found
;;[S] self sig OK; [B] bogus; [T] trusted

Zonemaster

Logfile examples