Eircom DSL - DNS Lookups Slow

mattman

eircom are down again today (DNS servers)

17th july firday 2009.

12:44pm.

--

I changed to open DNS. And set up account etc.

Can they track everything i do on the net? Is it safe? Same as eircom? Thanks.

Matt.

ps: net working fine, now that i switched.

Sully

mattman wrote: »

I changed to open DNS. And set up account etc.

Can they track everything i do on the net? Is it safe? Same as eircom? Thanks.

Matt.

ps: net working fine, now that i switched.

OpenDNS is probably more safe then a lot of Name Servers provided by ISPs as its usually more reliable and they patch security issues quickly. They offer a service which blocks dodgy sites (newer browsers come with this anyway) which is an extra layer of protection. Other features include suggesting the correct URL of a website - so if you type in bords.ie instead of boards.ie OpenDNS will spot the mistake and advise you. Other name servers wont.

In addition to all of the above, its been mentioned that if you enter an incorrect URL or domain that does not exists you will be redirected to a page full of adverts - this is safe, done by a lot of ISPs and other websites. Also, if you type a search request in your browser you may not be redirected to Google or whatever search engine is configured but instead one owned by OpenDNS - again, the idea being to make revenue to run the OpenDNS service. Whats great is, all these "cons" (if you call them that) can be disabled if you have an OpenDNS account. One more thing: An OpenDNS account is not required to switch. You can use their servers without having an account.

As OpenDNS has a much larger cache, you will probably have a faster service but probably wont be noticed much anyway.

So yes. It is reliable and safe to use. It is the solution, as you have discovered, to the recent problems with Eircoms DNS servers. Local fiddling with settings and cache wont fix the bigger problem, so be careful what advise you act on in future.

mattman

thanks for such a fast reply.

Yeah, I find the google and rte site loading up very fast now!

I set up an account, for fun, to check my stats and stuff.

It seems like a great service to block stuff to.

m.

Copyright

I dont know whats going on my end, the broadband is working in my area, My broadband is up for the moment but the second I goto ps3 or laptop or any wireless deivce to use it, it brings down my internet untill I switch it off, I've tried switching to open dns, and no fix anyone help?

lucernarian

http://www.siliconrepublic.com/news/article/13448/cio/eircom-reveals-cache-poisoning-attack-by-hacker-led-to-outages

A segment taken from the website:

“There was a moderate level attack and as a result of that people were getting redirected to incorrect websites. We took a number of measures – including restrictions on DNS – and they may well have impacted on service levels.

“We strengthened our systems around the filtering of unwanted or suspected traffic within IP ranges and adjusted parameters that control and optimise system performance.

“After we identified the cache poising we also saw increased levels of activities that were worrying and could have been a sign of something bigger.

“It was a moderate level attack that caused irregular and unusual traffic patterns and as a result we took steps that stopped the cache poisoning but certainly as we took these steps on security they also impacted customer experience

“We haven’t seen any further attempts at cache poisoning since last week,” the spokesman added.

He said that the company hasn’t reached a definitive conclusion as to where the attacks originated.

“We have stabilised the network and we have also taken a number of steps including installing additional DNS servers. This weekend we are starting an upgrade and replacement of some of our service routers,”

Sully

Good to see they have admitted it anyway.

Red Sleeping Beauty

What the hell is with this openDNS crap ? I can't connect to some websites without getting directed to some crap website http://guide.opendns.com/ Due to the internet dying the broadband/wireless network "Master" here decided to alter some settings. Feck sake anyway

knm

My connection is still crap tonight - Friday. It's been up and down all night. I've signed up to OpenDNS but even with the instructions, I still unsure whether it's set up properly.
Is there any sign of Eircom getting on top of this at all?

RareVintage

The Irish times has an article on the recent attacks on Eircom's servers.

Now I'm no techie - "DNS" meant nothing to me until I found this thread after the first attack - but when the second attack started I decided to trust the advice offered here about changing the DNS settings (repeated a few times, see eg page 10 Aidan's advice). So I went ahead and changed the router settings to use Opendns instead of Eircom's DNS.
Bingo, I avoided any disruption during the second attack and since (I don't know if Eircom has been disrupted since)

The IT article makes no reference to customers' ability to change router settings and thus avoid disruption of dsl service. Though there is a slight hint that Eircom is at fault for not having the necessary software patches in place...

“Anybody with a serious online presence should be ensuring that they have the necessary safeguards in place to protect their systems from these types of attacks,” he says. “That would include making sure their own servers have the most up-to-date security patches on them as well as having the necessary equipment in place to tackle and deal with these DDOS attacks.”

The bad news is that if your internet service provider is vulnerable to such attacks, there’s not much else the average individual user can do to defend against them. “Internet traffic has to go through the ISP, so the internet user has to trust their ISP,”

Quite obviously the domain lookups do not have to go through Eircom's domain name server!
So I can heartily recommend the advice given here about changing the DNS setting.
My thanks again to Aidanodr and others...

Sully

A lot of those IT authors have poor IT knowledge though.

Arathorn

The article was talking in general not just about DNS which is just a small part of potential attacks.

I think advertising about changing to open DNS could cause more confusion than its worth, remeber a lot of broadband users barely know how to use a mouse let alone configure their wireless router. Tech savy people will know about this anyway. Also if open DNS was ever compromised than eircom would be to blame for telling people to switch over.

RareVintage

That's true, it was a pretty general article, although it was supposed to be about the specific recent attack on Eircom.

I would regard myself as an "average" computer/internet user.
Anyway, I just get annoyed by lazy journalists, having suffered at their hands on a few occasions. She could have done 15 minutes of research and come up with "some users found advice on an Irish internet forum that enabled them to get around Eircom's problems". I suppose she is an "average" jounalist (in a very average newspaper) or maybe I have above-average standards!

Seeing as I'm here... personalised thanks should also go to Irishpancake about the dns stuff.... ta!

irishpancake

RareVintage wrote: »

That's true, it was a pretty general article, although it was supposed to be about the specific recent attack on Eircom.

I would regard myself as an "average" computer/internet user.
Anyway, I just get annoyed by lazy journalists, having suffered at their hands on a few occasions. She could have done 15 minutes of research and come up with "some users found advice on an Irish internet forum that enabled them to get around Eircom's problems". I suppose she is an "average" jounalist (in a very average newspaper) or maybe I have above-average standards!

Seeing as I'm here... personalised thanks should also go to Irishpancake about the dns stuff.... ta!

Ta very much, you are very welcome

On the point of "Lazy Journalism", just listening at the moment to RTE1 there, Saturday with Whatshername??, replacing Marion Finucane.

She is doing a piece on Technology with a couple of experts, I think Damien Mulley is one.

They have been asked specifically "what can the average computer user do to avoid the type of slow browsing, and all which has happened in the past two weeks with eircom".

Something like that anyway.

Neither of these two gentlemen made any reference whatsoever to eircoms DNS server problems, or the simple fix of switching to OpenDns to resolve the problems users were having.

They just repeated the same old stuff which we have been getting constantly in the print and broadcast media.

They apparently were quite happy to discuss this issue without giving the one piece of information which would help the majority of eircom customers.

Not good enough Damien!!

I remember your Ireland OffLine days.

I also note that the IT journo gave credit to Twitter, but did not mention Boards

Firetrap

Poor form alright. If it wasn't for the kind souls here on this thread who explained how to set up OpenDNS, I'd still be tearing my hair out.

witnessmenow

Seems to be happening for me again today, at work here so dont think i can go change to openDNS. Boards is working fine, the rest of teh interent... notso much!

Pablod

witnessmenow wrote: »

Seems to be happening for me again today, at work here so dont think i can go change to openDNS. Boards is working fine, the rest of teh interent... notso much!

That could be from your work's firewall/anti-virus blocking you
Especially if you can get onto boards no problems.

witnessmenow

Changed to OpenDNS locally (on the Pc, not the router) and it sorted it. In the Athlone area, blyry indutrial estate to be exact

Pablod

didn't think you could do that??????
I assumed once you change to OpenDNS it changes the WAN IP address not the LAN

chopperbyrne

thebman wrote: »

I use OpenDNS as my secondary DNS server on any connection because it just works.

I'd recommend it to anyone having problem with eircoms DNS.

They are saying is DDOS attack. If so do people think this is part of the majorly public affair with the music associations that ended up on torrentfreak?

A user there could easily have the ability to perform such an attack and would obviously not like eircom.

Good to have if your ISPs DNS servers go down completely and become unreachable, but in this case eircoms DNS servers are reachable, just not routing properly. If your computer can get a response (even a cannot route response) from it's primary DNS server it will not even attempt to use the secondary DNS server.

chopperbyrne

Pablod wrote: »

didn't think you could do that??????
I assumed once you change to OpenDNS it changes the WAN IP address not the LAN

DNS has nothing to do with your IP Address.

I have advised anyone who has asked me about it so far to change it on the local machine and not the router as you can give the same instructions to everyone and not have to worry about talking them through third party router configs.

Pablod

chopperbyrne wrote: »

DNS has nothing to do with your IP Address.

I have advised anyone who has asked me about it so far to change it on the local machine and not the router as you can give the same instructions to everyone and not have to worry about talking them through third party router configs.

ahh I see :rolleyes:

**Timbuk2**

I changed mine back from OpenDNS to Eircom as I was getting sick of typing something like 'anpost.ie' into the search bar and getting an OpenDNS page saying Did you mean www.anpost.ie or something similar.

Only happened for some sites though, boards.ie etc. worked fine without the www.

Mr.Nice Guy

I lost internet access completely there for the last 10-15 minutes. Didn't even have Boards. Anyone else experience this or was it just me? The computer seemed to be detecting the signal and there was no red light going off or anything. Strange.

davork

Mr.Nice Guy wrote: »

I lost internet access completely there for the last 10-15 minutes. Didn't even have Boards. Anyone else experience this or was it just me? The computer seemed to be detecting the signal and there was no red light going off or anything. Strange.

Just got of the phone with eircom business dsl support

They claim that no-one has complained about the issues from near 10pm through to 2am ish (although some people suffered for longer)

if you have 10 minutes, log a support call with them so they bother to look further

also if you have a traceroute taken during the time, they are very very very interested in them - ask where you should email them

apkb

same in galway

foggy_lad

davork wrote: »

Just got of the phone with eircom business dsl support

They claim that no-one has complained about the issues from near 10pm through to 2am ish (although some people suffered for longer)

if you have 10 minutes, log a support call with them so they bother to look further

also if you have a traceroute taken during the time, they are very very very interested in them - ask where you should email them

last time this happened i logged a call with their complaint line but was told that they would not be taking the complaint any further as they were aware of the serious faults that had occured. going to ring again now as had no internet for reveral hours yet again last night.

just rang and was told they would not forward the complaint as the service is working again!! what is the point of having a dedicated complaints line that uses every excuse to not take complaints?

thebman

They are on their union provided tea break and will fix the problems after morning tea time tomorrow :P

Why can't they stop the attack?

Sully

thebman wrote: »

Why can't they stop the attack?

A DDoS attack isnt the easiest to defend. Exploits are different but I assume thats well sorted by now.

Maskedgameguru

I am form Galway near tuam and so far it fine i am on my work pc now and it's ok.
In my house i am on open dns because the problem happens to me around 10.00pm onwards and so far it's good open dns.
Tho i am only 50 yards form my ipop so that might be it too dunno tho.
thank god.

Itsdacraic

Just a heads up, there is a possibility your IP address could be blacklisted after last weeks attacks. I am just back from a client site and there email ip had been blacklisted so they were unable to send mail.