On Fri, 11 Feb 2022, Mark Tinka wrote:
100% - and this is the crux of the issue.
As a community, it is clear that there is a need for this, and if 8.8.8.8
stops being an anchor for liveliness detection, users will find something
else to replace it with. And we can bet all our Kwacha that it won't have
been designed for that purpose, either.
I have to admit, I haven't read most of this thread, but I am well aware
of the issues with both end users and "routers" / firewalls pinging
8.8.8.8 as a means of verifying "that path to the Internet is working". I
know GOOG doesn't appreciate the amount of ICMP echo requests their
8.8.8.8 instances receive, and that at various times/places, that ICMP
traffic is/has been policed by GOOG.
So...here's a pair of "what if"s:
What if instead of pinging 8.8.8.8, all these things using it to "test the
Internet" sent it DNS requests instead? i.e.
GOOG=$(dig +short @8.8.8.8 google.com)
if [ -z "$GOOG" ] ; then
echo FAIL
fi
Would that make things better or worse for GOOG (Trading lots more DNS
requests for the ICMP echo requests)?
8.8.8.8 is already anycasted. What if each large ISP (for whatever
definition of large floats your boat) setup their own internal instance(s)
of 8.8.8.8 with a caching DNS server listening, and handled the traffic
without bothering GOOG? For users using 8.8.8.8 as a lighthouse, this
would change the meaning of their test...i.e. a response means their
connection to their ISP is up, and the ISP's network works at least enough
to reach an internal 8.8.8.8, but the question of their connectivity to
the rest of the Internet would be unanswered.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Jon Lewis, MCP :) | I route
StackPath, Sr. Neteng | therefore you are
_________ http://www.lewis.org/~jlewis/pgp for PGP public key_________
