time.nist.gov DNSSEC Outage: 2025-07-22 to 2025-07-23

Date: July 22, 2025 to July 23, 2025

Overview

This page gives some details on the time.nist.gov DNSSEC outage from July 22, 2025 to July 23, 2025.

Timeline / DNSViz

Verisign's DNSSEC Debugger

Here's a screenshot I took on July 22, 2025, of the DNSSEC Debugger output: time.nist.gov DNSSEC outage of July 22, 2025

CloudFlare 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 time.nist.gov. @1.1.1.1.

; <<>> DiG 9.11.5-P4-5.1+deb10u11-Debian <<>> +dnssec a time.nist.gov. @1.1.1.1.
;; global options: +cmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: SERVFAIL, id: 1984
;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 0, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 1

;; OPT PSEUDOSECTION:
; EDNS: version: 0, flags: do; udp: 1232
; OPT=15: 00 09 6e 6f 20 53 45 50 20 6d 61 74 63 68 69 6e 67 20 74 68 65 20 44 53 20 66 6f 75 6e 64 20 66 6f 72 20 67 6c 62 2e 6e 69 73 74 2e 67 6f 76 2e ("..no SEP matching the DS found for glb.nist.gov.")
;; QUESTION SECTION:
;time.nist.gov. IN A

;; Query time: 3 msec
;; SERVER: 1.1.1.1#53(1.1.1.1)
;; WHEN: Tue Jul 22 08:29:29 EDT 2025
;; MSG SIZE rcvd: 94

You have to disable DNSSEC to make DNS work:

$ dig +cd a time.nist.gov. @1.1.1.1.

; <<>> DiG 9.11.5-P4-5.1+deb10u11-Debian <<>> +cd a time.nist.gov. @1.1.1.1.
;; global options: +cmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 64604
;; flags: qr rd ra cd; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 2, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 1

;; OPT PSEUDOSECTION:
; EDNS: version: 0, flags:; udp: 1232
; OPT=15: 00 09 6e 6f 20 53 45 50 20 6d 61 74 63 68 69 6e 67 20 74 68 65 20 44 53 20 66 6f 75 6e 64 20 66 6f 72 20 67 6c 62 2e 6e 69 73 74 2e 67 6f 76 2e ("..no SEP matching the DS found for glb.nist.gov.")
;; QUESTION SECTION:
;time.nist.gov. IN A

;; ANSWER SECTION:
time.nist.gov. 219 IN CNAME ntp1.glb.nist.gov.
ntp1.glb.nist.gov. 219 IN A 132.163.97.6

;; Query time: 4 msec
;; SERVER: 1.1.1.1#53(1.1.1.1)
;; WHEN: Tue Jul 22 08:29:29 EDT 2025
;; MSG SIZE rcvd: 133

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] glb.nist.gov. 3600 IN DS 4395 7 1 0c36cd39f5f02bd56d2bb756157ffdc767a171cf
glb.nist.gov. 3600 IN DS 56235 7 1 437c2975f23cf301a31ae6973c6c0e0c8e9133ec
;; Domain: time.nist.gov.
;; No DNSKEY record found for time.nist.gov.
[U] No data found for: time.nist.gov. type A
;;[S] self sig OK; [B] bogus; [T] trusted

Logfile examples