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DNS has become frighteningly unreliable. Here are previous stories that show how it is possible to lose access to your domain for no fault of yours: (1) https:

DNS has become frighteningly unreliable. Here are previous stories that show how it is possible to lose access to your domain for no fault of yours: (1) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21700139 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21700139 - Sinkholed (2) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19322966 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19322966 - I lost my domain and everything that goes with it No different than this story where the author's DNS records were deleted because of so called "anomaly". Here are so many more stories: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21710939 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21710939 DNS was a good idea but now there are organizations that have the power to arbitrarily take control and even remove your domain names and records. We really need to come up with a peer-to-peer solution and take back control of the naming system from these authorities.

nathancahill 7y ago
Odd comment to make a throwaway for, not very controversial (unless you work for Cloudflare?)
- throwawaydns101 7y ago
  I don't work for Cloudflare but I work for another large company that also manages domain names and DNS records. I don't want to risk the possibility that my comment could be interpreted by my employer as conflict the interest.
  - Operyl 7y ago
    Probably should have made a mention to that in the first comment.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
Legogris 7y ago
I looked into self-hosting DNS and it doesn't seem like that big of a deal as long as you can ensure uptime to be honest. If you set up the two first on different hosts and possibly have #3/4 being cloud providers I think you're pretty good. Does anyone here have experience with running their own DNS servers for their domains?
- throwawaydns101 7y ago
  That would solve the problem of losing DNS records. What do you do when you lose access to the domain name in the first place?
  - Legogris 7y ago
    Indeed. I am curious to see what comes out of attempts at decentralizing this such as Handshake[0] and ENS[1]. I think I saw something similar with prominent backers come up here on HN the other week but can't recall it now. Namecoin[2] was very early on this. [0]: https://www.namebase.io/ https://www.namebase.io/ [1]: https://ens.domains/ https://ens.domains/ [2]: https://bit.namecoin.org/ https://bit.namecoin.org/
  - teddyh 7y ago
    The main problem which people seem to have is that their domain name registrar decides to pull their domain. Luckily, there is ample competition in this space, my place of employment included, which should make it reasonable to pick a place which 1. doesn’t do that and 2. has reasonable real-live-person support. Of course, if the registry (i.e. the TLD) wants your domain gone, you are out of luck whatever you do. If this is a concern then you should pick a TLD with what you consider reasonable management. There are a lot of ccTLDs and gTLDs to choose from. Therefore, what you absolutely shouldn’t do is to pick whatever domain registrar is either cheapest or largest, and pick whatever domain name which happens to look cool and be available. Both are recipies for potential disaster.
- icedchai 7y ago
  I've been self hosting DNS for 20+ years. It's easy as pie. I have a couple name servers on my home network (business cable) and another on a VPS.
Defenestresque 7y ago
>DNS has become frighteningly unreliable. Here are previous stories that show how it is possible to lose access to your domain for no fault of yours: The second story you posted is about a user who forgot to renew their domain and did not wish to pay the overly-inflated fee to re-register it while it was in the grace period. I hold no love for any registrar that jacks up rates for getting back an expired domain and agree that they should have sent a reminder email, but describing this as someone "losing their domain through no fault of their own" is, frankly, incredibly misleading. The user: 1) forgot to renew their domain 2) had full right to recover their domain but objected to the price 3) had full right to transfer the domain out to another registrar for the original 15EUR price and 4) eventually got back full control of the domain

nathancahill 7y ago

Odd comment to make a throwaway for, not very controversial (unless you work for Cloudflare?)

throwawaydns101 7y ago
I don't work for Cloudflare but I work for another large company that also manages domain names and DNS records. I don't want to risk the possibility that my comment could be interpreted by my employer as conflict the interest.
- Operyl 7y ago
  Probably should have made a mention to that in the first comment.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]

Legogris 7y ago

I looked into self-hosting DNS and it doesn't seem like that big of a deal as long as you can ensure uptime to be honest. If you set up the two first on different hosts and possibly have #3/4 being cloud providers I think you're pretty good. Does anyone here have experience with running their own DNS servers for their domains?

throwawaydns101 7y ago
That would solve the problem of losing DNS records. What do you do when you lose access to the domain name in the first place?
- Legogris 7y ago
  Indeed. I am curious to see what comes out of attempts at decentralizing this such as Handshake[0] and ENS[1]. I think I saw something similar with prominent backers come up here on HN the other week but can't recall it now. Namecoin[2] was very early on this. [0]: https://www.namebase.io/ https://www.namebase.io/ [1]: https://ens.domains/ https://ens.domains/ [2]: https://bit.namecoin.org/ https://bit.namecoin.org/
- teddyh 7y ago
  The main problem which people seem to have is that their domain name registrar decides to pull their domain. Luckily, there is ample competition in this space, my place of employment included, which should make it reasonable to pick a place which 1. doesn’t do that and 2. has reasonable real-live-person support. Of course, if the registry (i.e. the TLD) wants your domain gone, you are out of luck whatever you do. If this is a concern then you should pick a TLD with what you consider reasonable management. There are a lot of ccTLDs and gTLDs to choose from. Therefore, what you absolutely shouldn’t do is to pick whatever domain registrar is either cheapest or largest, and pick whatever domain name which happens to look cool and be available. Both are recipies for potential disaster.
icedchai 7y ago
I've been self hosting DNS for 20+ years. It's easy as pie. I have a couple name servers on my home network (business cable) and another on a VPS.

Defenestresque 7y ago

>DNS has become frighteningly unreliable. Here are previous stories that show how it is possible to lose access to your domain for no fault of yours: The second story you posted is about a user who forgot to renew their domain and did not wish to pay the overly-inflated fee to re-register it while it was in the grace period. I hold no love for any registrar that jacks up rates for getting back an expired domain and agree that they should have sent a reminder email, but describing this as someone "losing their domain through no fault of their own" is, frankly, incredibly misleading. The user: 1) forgot to renew their domain 2) had full right to recover their domain but objected to the price 3) had full right to transfer the domain out to another registrar for the original 15EUR price and 4) eventually got back full control of the domain