dnssek.info DNSSEC Outage: 2019-11-03

Date: November 3, 2019

Overview

This page gives some details on the dnssek.info DNSSEC outage on November 3, 2019. dnssek.info provides what it calls the "DNSSEC EARLY WARNING SYSTEM (DEWS)" for expiring and expired TLD RRSIGs...

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 November 3, 2019:

November 3, 2019 dnssek.info DNSSEC outage

Google Public DNS

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

With Google Public DNS, because of DNSSEC, queries fail:

$ dig +dnssec ns dnssek.info. @8.8.8.8

; <<>> DiG 9.4.2-P2 <<>> +dnssec ns dnssek.info. @8.8.8.8
;; global options: printcmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: SERVFAIL, id: 27734
;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 0, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 1

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

;; Query time: 169 msec
;; SERVER: 8.8.8.8#53(8.8.8.8)
;; WHEN: Sun Nov 3 01:33:55 2019
;; MSG SIZE rcvd: 40

You have to disable DNSSEC to make DNS queries work:

$ dig +cd ns dnssek.info. @8.8.8.8

; <<>> DiG 9.4.2-P2 <<>> +cd ns dnssek.info. @8.8.8.8
;; global options: printcmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 32824
;; flags: qr rd ra cd; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 3, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 0

;; QUESTION SECTION:
;dnssek.info. IN NS

;; ANSWER SECTION:
dnssek.info. 21599 IN NS ns.dnssek.org.
dnssek.info. 21599 IN NS ns3.xtcn.com.
dnssek.info. 21599 IN NS ns-tokyo.xtcn.com.

;; Query time: 216 msec
;; SERVER: 8.8.8.8#53(8.8.8.8)
;; WHEN: Sun Nov 3 01:33:55 2019
;; MSG SIZE rcvd: 105

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: dnssek.info.
[B] dnssek.info. 3600 IN DNSKEY 256 3 8 ;{id = 38286 (zsk), size = 2048b}
dnssek.info. 3600 IN DNSKEY 257 3 8 ;{id = 532 (ksk), size = 2048b}
[B] Error verifying denial of existence for dnssek.info. type A: No keys with the keytag and algorithm from the RRSIG found
;;[S] self sig OK; [B] bogus; [T] trusted

Logfile examples