Piggybacking related domain names to improve DNS performance

Abstract

In this paper, we present a novel approach to exploit the relationships among domain names to improve the cache hit rate for a local DNS server. Using these relationships, an authoritative DNS server (ADNS) can piggyback resolutions for future queries as part of the response message for an initial query. The approach improves the cache hit rate as well as reducing the total queries and responses. The approach is particularly attractive because it can be implemented with no changes to the existing DNS protocol.Trace-based simulations show more than 50% of cache misses can be reduced in the best case while straightforward policies, using frequency and relevancy data for an ADNS, reduce cache misses by 25-40% and DNS traffic by 20-35%. These percentages improve if we focus the policies on resource records with smaller authoritative TTLs. We also show improved performance for hybrid approaches that combine the approach with renewal-based approaches.In conjunction with this work we also did a study on current DNS performance for 20 locations in the United States. The outcome of this study is that the current average DNS latency is generally in the range of 200-300ms, but range from 500ms to multiple seconds if we look at the 95% response time. Approaches, such as what we propose, that reduce the amount of DNS traffic will improve the overall response time for applications.

An empirical study of the performance, security and privacy implications of domain name prefetching

“…These ideas include prefetching of domain names based on popularity, prefetching of related domain names using piggyback schemes, and precaching of records based on several renewal policies (e.g., [14,15]). However, none of these works perform large scale analyses or study the privacy and security implications for any of their prescribed prefetching policies.…”

Faster Web through Client-Assisted CDN Server Selection

“…Shang et al proposed a tool to reduce the DNS cache miss rate by exploiting similarity of requested Web domains to the domains that already have a DNS resolution cached [22]. DNS Pre-Resolve is another technique to eliminate DNS lookup delay by resolving domain names proactively during Web page rendering [23].…”

Quantitatively Analyzing Stealthy Communication Channels

“…For example, renewal using piggyback method was proposed to piggyback cached DNS records to DNS queries to refresh expired cached records [5]. Related domains may also be piggybacked in DNS queries [10], e.g., to include i.cnn.net in the DNS packet for www.cnn.com as they are likely to be requested together by the browser. Millen did pioneering work on covert-channel analysis [?,?…”