[dns-operations] Decommissioning of the RIPE NCC Reply-size Tester

[Anand Buddhdev]

[Apologies for duplicates]

Dear Colleagues,

In December 2009, the RIPE NCC made a reply-size tester available to the
community. The purpose of this was to allow users to test their networks
for path MTU related issues and to help them prepare for the roll-out of
a signed root zone.

We installed the reply-size server component on a temporary basis at the
global instances of K-root to allow testing against an actual root
server instance. We collected some statistics and published some
interesting research on the RIPE Labs website:

http://labs.ripe.net/Members/dfk/content-measuring-dns-transfer-sizes-first-results

A signed root zone has been published since 15 July 2010, and we feel
that the reply-size tester has served its function. We are therefore
going to decommission it on Monday, 11 October 2010.

If you wish to continue testing networks for path MTU issues, we
recommend that you use the reply-size tester of DNS OARC:

https://www.dns-oarc.net/oarc/services/replysizetest

Regards,

Anand Buddhdev
DNS Services Manager, RIPE NCC