.lr (Liberia) TLD DNSSEC Outage: 2020-11-02

Date: November 2, 2020

Overview

This page gives some details on the .lr DNSSEC outage on November 2, 2020.

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 2, 2020:

November 2, 2020 .lr 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 lr. @8.8.8.8

; <<>> DiG 9.10.3-P4-Debian <<>> +dnssec ns lr. @8.8.8.8
;; global options: +cmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: SERVFAIL, id: 49792
;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 0, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 1

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

;; Query time: 205 msec
;; SERVER: 8.8.8.8#53(8.8.8.8)
;; WHEN: Mon Nov 02 00:14:40 UTC 2020
;; MSG SIZE rcvd: 31

You have to disable DNSSEC to make DNS queries work:

$ dig +cd ns lr. @8.8.8.8

; <<>> DiG 9.10.3-P4-Debian <<>> +cd ns lr. @8.8.8.8
;; global options: +cmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 48724
;; flags: qr rd ra cd; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 3, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 1

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

;; ANSWER SECTION:
lr. 14399 IN NS FORK.STH.DNSNODE.NET.
lr. 14399 IN NS RIP.PSG.COM.
lr. 14399 IN NS NS-LR.AFRINIC.NET.

;; Query time: 32 msec
;; SERVER: 8.8.8.8#53(8.8.8.8)
;; WHEN: Mon Nov 02 00:14:41 UTC 2020
;; MSG SIZE rcvd: 118

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):

[T] lr. 86400 IN DS 29984 8 2 aa0ec78a15474b054759a26a2be9d85a97f5fe9fe485a206e68b4f83b07789f8
lr. 86400 IN DS 29984 8 1 a5e2025d5c3b1f4853bdda21aa6a751e552dc715
;; Domain: lr.
;; Signature ok but no chain to a trusted key or ds record
[S] lr. 3600 IN DNSKEY 256 3 8 ;{id = 48981 (zsk), size = 2048b}
lr. 3600 IN DNSKEY 257 3 8 ;{id = 13535 (ksk), size = 2048b}
[S] Existence denied: lr. A
;;[S] self sig OK; [B] bogus; [T] trusted

Logfile examples