[dns-operations] Pinging the root name servers to check my connectivity?

[Stephane Bortzmeyer]

On Wed, Sep 05, 2012 at 02:44:34PM +0000,
 Vernon Schryver <vjs at rhyolite.com> wrote 
 a message of 78 lines which said:

> Why poke distant anchors when almost all "The Internet is down"
> complaints have local causes, and when not local, are out of the
> control

Because the goal is not to fix them but to be aware of them so that I
don't receive emails "www.example.com is DOWN" when it's actually the
IGP inside my ISP which went berserk.

> My systems poke the far sides of my routers, services that I own and
> operate on other networks,

Precisely what I do. And I'm tired of spurious alarms when all these
services seem to go down at the same time. There is a reason why every
serious monitoring software has the concept of "dependency".

> and service providers that receive my money for more substantial
> services.

Someone suggested privately to use www.my-ISP.net. It is a sufficient
test in most case and it is not a common resource, it is a service I
pay for.

> That irony made me see that the unsolicited beacon/anchor idea is
> yet another "doesn't scale" and "tragedy of the commons" notion like
> spam.

But today, there is no "public service beacon". (No, I'm not volunteer
to set up one with my money.)