Beware of Using Google Or OpenDNS For iTunes 348
Relayman writes "Joe Mailer wanted to download an iTunes movie recently and his Apple TV told him it would take two hours. When he switched his DNS resolver settings, the download time dropped to less than 20 seconds. Apparently, iTunes content is served by Akamai which uses geolocation based on the IP address of the DNS request to determine which server should provide his content. When you use Google or OpenDNS to resolve the Apple domain name, all the requests to Akamai appear to be coming from the same location and they're all directed to the same server pool, overloading that pool and causing the slow downloads. The solution: be wary of using Google or OpenDNS when downloading iTunes files or similar large files. Use your own ISP's DNS servers instead or run your own resolving DNS server."
Opposite Experience with Adobe Download (Score:5, Informative)
But I just tested this on my own by using a different source that uses Akamai: Adobe.
So I picked a file at this URL: http://ardownload.adobe.com/pub/adobe/reader/unix/9.x/9.4.0/enu/AdbeRdr9.4-1_i486linux_enu.bin [adobe.com]
Sure enough, the initial server directed me to 72.215.224.16 with this partial tracert:
Firefox told me this would take 3 Minutes and 35 Seconds.
Then, I set my DNS to the 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 addresses and tried it again. This time I was sent to 72.246.30.19 with this partial tracert:
Surprisingly, this second server that I was directed to using Google DNS only took 10 seconds to download the same file. I did it a second time and it took 30 seconds.
Now after restoring my default DNS resolution that URL continually directs me to 72.215.224.40 and the download is as speedy as the Google DNS. If I switch back to Google DNS it now continually directs me to 72.246.30.32 so you can see that there's some load balancing going here that apparently can be divvied up by geographic location for some of their customers. Apparently Apple needs to investigate the same solution that Adobe is using from Akamai. Which doesn't consider everything from Google DNS being fulfilled from a west coast replication server?
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I though Google used Anycast [wikipedia.org] just like the rest of the large providers. Perhaps it's a routing issue where Google's servers are separated a bit geographically from certain people and the servers they are wanting to connect to?
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The geographic information isn't the issue. It's the fact that there are a very large number of clients using the same pools of DNS resolvers. Akamai uses those resolvers' IP address to map the client to a cache pool; if there are too many requests from the same netblock, they'll all get sent to the same cache pool, overloading it.
At some point, Akamai's load feedback system will notice this and direct users to a different pool, but it's a reactive measurement.
Re:Opposite Experience with Adobe Download (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is Akamai is using DNS to determine location, when it should be determining the geolocation of the client IP and throwing an HTTP redirect to the proper server. You can't rely on a client using the "proper" geographically-located DNS server.
Re:Opposite Experience with Adobe Download (Score:5, Insightful)
Not really. An HTTP redirect means that you make an initial connection to one server, and are then told that what you really want is on another. This adds a small amount of latency, but typically well under half a second. The original server is then not used for the remainder of the download. Akamai is typically used to serve large files - at least a few megabytes - so this extra hop doesn't add much overhead, and does make the geographic distribution much more efficient.
Using the DNS server's IP to determine the address of the client is fundamentally broken. There are other cases where it can fail spectacularly, such as when you have a computer sitting on two networks - it always sends DNS requests on one and then picks the less-loaded network for other connections, so the DNS tells it to go to the right server for the DNS cache's network and the client uses the other network. You can also have serious problems with resolvers caching addresses in a laptop - if you move between two networks (e.g. 3G and WiFi) and the server's address is cached, you'll find that you're going to the wrong server.
Re:Opposite Experience with Adobe Download (Score:5, Insightful)
A HTTP redirect system requires extra http request to be made without even knowing where the client is. You could be making that request from South Africa to North America, adding big delay.
An HTTP redirect is typically resolved in less than a second. If your download is going to take over a minute, that's less that 1% of your total download time.
When 99.9% of internet users use their local ISP's DNS it just makes sense to build it like that. Sure it's not perfect for the odd geeks who have changed their DNS settings, but that is so small minority it doesn't make any sense to slow down their whole system.
When your power users don't use their local ISPs, it makes sense to at least filter out those requests for special handling. Right now, if I were asked to chose a CDN, I'd have to recommend someone other that Akamai, if only because I use OpenDNS at home. If I were Akamai, I'd want to route Google and OpenDNS requests to servers that provide HTTP redirects based on the client's IP.
Akamai has been in this business for a very long time and has their infrastructure on datacenters all over the planet. They know what they're doing.
If they knew what they were doing, they wouldn't have this problem. Level 3 was able to grab Netflix, which indicates at least some customer dissatisfaction, and Limewire is growing at twice Akamai's rate. Do you work for Akamai, or are you a free-lance apologist?
Re:Opposite Experience with Adobe Download (Score:5, Insightful)
Well the point of the GP's Anycast comment was that simply using 8.8.8.8 as your dns server is not sufficient to pinpoint WHERE your dns comes from.
8.8.8.8 will resolve to different physical machines depending on the load balancing that Google is doing.
Your dns request might be served out of California on one hit, and out of Ireland on the next hit.
Akamai, by paying attention to where the DNS request came from is doing it fundamentally WRONG, because they could actually deny service (for national licensing reasons) based on location of the DNS server when the actual user was in a totally different (and legal) location.
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The point here is that routing a request to a server near the DNS server is fundamentally the wrong thing to do. You route to the server closest to the end user.
And how do you do that? After all, they've already made their request and you have to have something answer it. Sure, you could tell them to talk to someone else, but that's a potentially very slow bounce (at internet speeds). Aha! When they connect and ask for the file, that's actually the 2nd time they communicate with you. The first time they provide a string, an "address" so to speak, and ask machines that you control what IP address they should talk to. Perfect! That even has to be a separate re
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Two hours vs. instant streaming isn't a localization issue, you can easily stream 1-2mbps (or much more) from half way around the world. ~100ms in latency is nothing with a fat, non time sensitive stream like recorded video.\
It sounds like the specific POP the google DNS server is being fed is overloaded with traffic. It should be fairly easy for Apple to resolve the problem on their end, by simply not resolving to overloaded pops (they shouldn't ever anyway).
Other video cdn backed services (like netflix) d
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It sounds like the specific POP the google DNS server is being fed is overloaded with traffic.
That sounds exactly what was surmised in the summary.
When you use Google or Open DNS to resolve the Apple domain name, all the requests to Akamai appear to be coming from the same location and they're all directed to the same server pool, overloading that pool and causing the slow downloads.
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Presumably, Akamai uses their geolocation trickery because local deliveries are faster and cheaper. No need to traverse numerous hops, possibly co
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Good advice - Always use your ISP for DNS (Score:2, Funny)
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yeah, cause comcast and at&t never have DNS outages... Last month Comcast had a huge DNS outage, I didn't even notice it since I have been using openDNS for years. My MIL called me up saying her internet was down, I had her ping some IPs and they worked, but DNS didn't. Changed her over to opendns and it worked fine after that.
Re:Good advice - Always use your ISP for DNS (Score:5, Funny)
MIL - I realized after a few seconds that probably stands for "Mother-In-Law", but the mechanic in me instantly interpreted it as "Malfunction Indicator Lamp."
Shortly after that I had a chuckle upon realizing that they're both things no one likes to see.
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Sure you can, Primary and secondary are setup to openDNS on my router...
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Which is fine, except that you'll hit the "wrong" Akamai servers for your network.
My question is why Akamai is using DNS for their geo-load-balancing rather than anycasting the content servers themselves.
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Excellent question, a method that uses your actual location instead of where your DNS server is.
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"Consider what would happen if the route changed in the middle of a download: you'd start talking to a server you had no session with."
Isn't that what the header packets are for? So each packet knows where it came from and where it's going?
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The MAC address is only visible on the local network. The first router you hit strips it and adds its own (assuming that the router's uplink is ethernet or some other link protocol that has a MAC).
The idea behind anycast is that I can install hundreds of DNS servers around the world, and give them all the same address but make them return different results, with the idea that the DNS server that is "closest" to the user would return a (non-anycast) address for "download.example.com" that is also "close".
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Anycast == Hard, DNS == Easy...
DNS also equals "stupid method of doing it". While most/many large ISPs have DNS servers geographically located, a number still do not. Heck, back in the 90's, UUNet ran three "public" (for their customers) DNS servers... if memory serves, they were Virginia, Chicago and Cali. Customers would use the closest two. Now... this was an ISP that was AlterDial, MSN's backbone and dial-in, AOL's backbone and dial-in, and, at the time, battling for the largest Internet backbone against IBM.
Don't know why they'd us
Re:Good advice - Always use your ISP for DNS (Score:5, Funny)
yeah, since you can't set secondary dns servers in any modern os...
Sure you can, Primary and secondary are setup to openDNS on my router...
Do they resolve wooosh.com?
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They resolve it to some parked site.
Re:Good advice - Always use your ISP for DNS (Score:4, Interesting)
Sure you can, Primary and secondary are setup to openDNS on my router...
I really don't understand why such a high percentage of /. readers use anything other than their own DNS server (i.e., a DNS server in or behind their router).
It's insanely trivial to install a caching DNS resolver on just about any OS and there is also custom router firmware that does this.
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But why would you? Even if it's easy, it's more effort than it's worth.
Re:Good advice - Always use your ISP for DNS (Score:5, Insightful)
Only if I trust them not to fuck with it.
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Which they do for me, so I run my own DNS.
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Too bad modern OSes only have a spot for a single DNS server. Otherwise you could add multiple.
Add Multiple.
Drop Timeout Time.
Enjoy.
If Comcast goes down, I'll fail over to Verizon/Google. If Comcast is up it knows my location.
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Um, I know it is early (6am here for me...) but which modern OS only supports one server?...
Win7 supports a long list if you so desire, as does linux...
Or did you typo? :p
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Um, I know it is early (6am here for me...) but which modern OS only supports one server?...
Grab your morning coffee and fire up the sarcasm detector.
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if you're on a home network chances are pretty high your router is acting as your DNS server or setting the DNS servers for your machine via DHCP.
Maintaining DNS primaries, secondaries, tertiaries etc. on more than one or two machines can be a bit of a PITA too.
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yeah, so using the DNS servers from comcast that are provided by DHCP never change for you, huh. Troubleshooting that mess is a pita.
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You can override the assigned nameservers at your router or in your OS.
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Sure you can, and managing that for more than a couple of PCs is a PITA.
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Umm no, I think I'll just pass on those services if they are that daft, thanks.
Fuck akamai... if any software delivery system or service is slow for me because of content distribution tomfoolery, I simply won't use it. I would never have anything to do with iAnything in the first place, though.
Most ISP's DNS servers suck... and the whole reason I started using OpenDNS is because the ISP's were slow to respond, and the primary was often out and there were delays until the resolvers queried the secondary.
Hell
Re:Good advice - Always use your ISP for DNS (Score:4, Interesting)
It's blacklisted in my router at the root domain level.
Slashdot runs so much faster, now.
WHY MUST YOU LOAD SOMETHING WHEN I'M CLOSING YOUR TAB, SLASHDOT?
Seriously, that's a bunch of bullshit.
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By domain name, of course. You do know how to use a wildcard in your config script, yes?
*.akamai.net
You can also implement a blacklist by IP address. It's quite simple to find out which IP addresses are currently allocated to Akamai.
Adios Akamai with specialized whitelist exceptions for certain components to get some sites to work properly.
And I have to repeat the settings in NoScript as well but of course that's pretty trivial.
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How about you come over and watch it happen for yourself? That's a fully open invitation with full-paid plane ticket and couch space. And when you see me prove to you hands-down that it's DNS all the way (and I'm not switching to Google because their DNS propagation is slow as balls,) you get to swallow ten of my fresh bhut jolokia peppers as an "I told you so" and I get to record it and post it on youtube.
Deal? I just spent last week helping the Redlands Police Department track down the source of some rand
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Use your own ISP for DNS.
When you first get a Comcast account, before you've registered your modem's MAC address with them, they give you an IP address but the DNS server they give you always points you at their registration server. Trouble is, the database that the DNS server reads out of can sometimes get out of sync with what modems are actually registered, and there's nothing Comcast's first- or second-level techs can do about it other than to tell you how to set your DNS servers manually to something else (they'll give you th
Re:Good advice - Always use your ISP for DNS (Score:4, Interesting)
I already do, and since my ISP censors the internet through their DNS there is no alternative to go back to them.
And a cleaned up version of my config. It doesn't involve the ISP at all but queries the root servers on the net instead.
And as long as the ISP:s doesn't filter the DNS requests to the root servers this is the way to go right now.
options {
allow-query {
127.0.0.1;
192.168.0.0/16;
};
directory "/var/named";
pid-file "/var/run/named/named.pid";
recursion yes;
dnssec-validation no;
};
key mykey. {
algorithm HMAC-MD5;
secret "** Secretas... ***";
};
zone "." {
type hint;
file "root.hints";
};
zone "int.anon.org" {
type master;
allow-update { key mykey.;};
file "int.anon.org.db";
notify yes;
};
zone "1.168.192.in-addr.arpa" {
type master;
allow-update { key mykey.;};
file "1.168.192.db";
notify yes;
};
zone "localdomain" {
type master;
file "localhost.db";
notify no;
};
zone "0.0.127.in-addr.arpa" {
type master;
file "0.0.127.db";
};
zone "0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.ip6.arpa" IN {
type master;
file "ip6.local.db";
allow-update { none; };
};
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Sorry - It should have read use your own DNS...
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Believe it or not, sometimes you have no choice.
Where I presently live, there is no DSL-based service available, only cable modem. If you are fortunate to live on the right side of the building, you can get Clear's WiMAX service, but that has issues.
Or set up your own nameserver (Score:2)
With a little effort, you can set up BIND on your own system.
Re:Good advice - Always use your ISP for DNS (Score:5, Interesting)
Use your own ISP for DNS.
Do you have any tips for keeping your ISP from directing a "server not found" to one of their crappy ad-ridden search pages? I think that's a major reason people choose DNS servers that aren't at their ISP.
Re:Good advice - Always use your ISP for DNS (Score:4)
This is a very widespread practice now. Use your own ISP for DNS.
I prefer using a DNS provider who doesn't serve me a Yahoo powered by Bing search page if I try going to a bad URL - unlike my "own ISP".
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RR top-tier residential service in Redlands, CA. (15/2)
I have to reset the modem multiple times daily, or the router, because DNS is consistently fucked.
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and that's one of the reasons I added the Google DNS server as a secondary to my router. Solves the damn problem when TW/RR suffers another DNS failure.
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How long do you think it will be before the first lawsuit happens over that, considering redirects without notification are against the rules as it's considered a function of spyware?
Re:Good advice - Always use your ISP for DNS (Score:4, Informative)
So standard question. Why are you throwing unresolvable queries at your ISP's DNS??
Hmmm... here's a few guesses:
(1) typo
(2) bad link from another site
(3) dead link on a search engine
(4) checking a domain that's been registered to see if it's active, parked or pointing nowhere
I'm sure there are other reasons...
good technical discussion of this at HN (Score:2)
There's some good technical discussion in the Hacker's News discussion [ycombinator.com] of this issue.
Namebench DNS tool (Score:5, Interesting)
Why (Score:2)
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The beauty of the DNS "trick" is that a user requesting say "yadiyadi.com/media/cheez.mp4" in Norway would get one IP and a client in say Australia would get a completely different IP. This makes the whole CDN implementation a whole lot easier as you avoid the whole negotiation issue by having the domain resolve to different IPs based on the source of the request.
This is overly simplified of course.
It works for the vast majority of users too.
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While it's arguably "prettier" I don't see anything wrong with old school redirects though. Either using 302's or "sourceforge" style.
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You can anycast DNS with UDP and the client never knows the difference since it's handled with BGP and IP. HTTP redirects would be much more difficult to do from a reliability and scalability standpoint. Also, when it fails, it would be much less graceful.
I don't use either (Score:2)
I've used our university's DNS servers as primary for over a decade, with whatever my current ISP is as secondary. I haven't had any complaints.
Or use your own DNS (Score:2)
I use to setup my own DNS at home and casually use forward zones when needed. I started this when ther was that issue with redirecting non existant names.
Sure, not every one should do this as it stress load root servers and some ISP may redirect UDP/TCP 53 to their own servers. BTW, that's still my way of using DNS.
M$ does it too... (Score:2, Informative)
Microsoft does this too. After scratching my head over the past several weeks trying to figure out why I cant download M$ files worth crap half the time, this appears to be why.
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So the moral of the story is... (Score:2)
So the moral of the story here is not that Google and OpenDNS services are bad, but that Apple's iTunes QoS methods are of "questionable quality" - at best.
How did this make Slashdot's frontpage, again? Maybe this should be filed as a bug report to Apple (do they read those?) instead.
To who again? (Score:2)
The moral the the story would appear to be that more people on Slashot need to read up on what CDN's are and who runs them.
Multiple DNS feature? (Score:2, Interesting)
Seems like it would be useful to use multiple DNS servers and then choose whichever one has the fastest download and abandon the other connections.
Do any browsers/OSs/whatever have this feature? As I understand it, the secondary DNS feature only uses the secondary server when the primary server is down.
And how is this news? (Score:3)
This applies to tons of GEO-optimized services and has been this way since day one. Really, how is this news?
Re:And how is this news? (Score:5, Interesting)
BTW - Remember when Google proposed to modify the DNS protocol to pass on the end-users IP? This is exactly why.
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Really, how is this news?
Maybe because this involved both Apple and Google? Guaranteed tons of comments (and tons of hits) from fanboys on both sides.
TreeWalk (Score:3)
The first suggestion is just no longer an option, for so many reasons, all of them based on lack of trustworthiness in this climate of corporate dominance and machination. I was using OpenDNS for several years, but recently I started using TreeWalk [ntcanuck.com] to host my own modest DNS server. Seems to work fine, and I don't even notice it's there.
Where are the torrents? (Score:4, Insightful)
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You really wonder why Apple, and Akamai, would not use some kind of torrent technology!
Because BitTorrent is a free open protocol which Akamai would not be able to charge money for.
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Very criminal when you consider that you do NOT need to install iTunes just to install quicktime.
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If only ignorance is criminal too.
Maybe at one time, iTunes was the only way to get Quicktime, but if that's true, that was years ago.
http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/ [apple.com]
I think you'd find some people saying QuickTime is criminal too, but I think that's a different discussion.
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Quicktime has been around a lot longer than iTunes (but it was never less of a resource hog as far as I remember).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quicktime#QuickTime_1.x [wikipedia.org]
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You don't need to install iTunes to install QuickTime. Sadly, you do need QuickTime to install iTunes. Which is the lessor evil depends on your needs, but I'd be thrilled to have iTunes alone without QuickTime, Bonjour or the host of kernel mode crap it installs.
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Which is the lessor evil depends on your needs,
Well, since neither Quicktime or iTunes is leased to you, I guess that means neither is a lessor evil.
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Fair enough.
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Six months ago, I was the owner of mini-Mac, iPad and a iPhon
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Wow, had to stop and fap to your own fanfiction.
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Their DNS server never knows your IP since if the name result isn't cached by the DNS server you are using then that server makes the request to them not your computer and hence they either see nothing or the IP of the DNS server you are using.
Re:You would think. (Score:5, Informative)
They only find out your IP address after it's too late.
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Your computer uses that answer to contact the server and download whatever. If it was given the wrong server, it's too late now.
Why is that too late? See the IP address, issue a redirect to the appropriate server. In HTTP that's as simple as issuing a 302 response and a Location: header. (I haven't Wiresharked iTMS to see how it's connecting, but it would be a dead simple change to the protocol to insert a handshake step that occurs before the substantive transfer begins. Overhead would be negligible.)
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Indeed. HTTP might be a bit slower and not benefit from the ISP's DNS caching, but in conjunction with the DNS method it would provide an acceptable correction method. Rather wait 1 more second for the download to start then to download at painfully low speeds.
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HTTP Live Streaming (Score:2)
Pretty sure Apple is using all HTTP Live Streaming at this point, which in fact is all based on HTTP...
Also I have worked with a lot of applications that stream or play media now, and generally it's been done over HTTP - I'd say that's more the rule than the exception.
And if an HTTP client can't follow redirects it's not really an HTTP client - that's pretty basic stuff, I can't fathom there is anything that wouldn't obey a re-direct (unless it was doing so on purpose).
Re:You would think. (Score:4, Informative)
More info on my above point. If Akamai were to use HTTP instead of DNS for load balancing, complexity would increase in having to manage redirect clusters, as you couldn't anycast them over UDP like you can with DNS.
RFC 1546 - Host Anycasting Service
How UDP and TCP Use Anycasting
It is important to remember that anycasting is a stateless service.
An internetwork has no obligation to deliver two successive packets
sent to the same anycast address to the same host.
Because UDP is stateless and anycasting is a stateless service, UDP
can treat anycast addresses like regular IP addresses. A UDP
datagram sent to an anycast address is just like a unicast UDP
datagram from the perspective of UDP and its application. A UDP
datagram from an anycast address is like a datagram from a unicast
address. Furthermore, a datagram from an anycast address to an
anycast address can be treated by UDP as just like a unicast datagram
(although the application semantics of such a datagram are a bit
unclear).
TCP's use of anycasting is less straightforward because TCP is
stateful. It is hard to envision how one would maintain TCP state
with an anycast peer when two successive TCP segments sent to the
anycast peer might be delivered to completely different hosts.
The solution to this problem is to only permit anycast addresses as
the remote address of a TCP SYN segment (without the ACK bit set). A
TCP can then initiate a connection to an anycast address. When the
SYN-ACK is sent back by the host that received the anycast segment,
the initiating TCP should replace the anycast address of its peer,
with the address of the host returning the SYN-ACK. (The initiating
TCP can recognize the connection for which the SYN-ACK is destined by
treating the anycast address as a wildcard address, which matches any
incoming SYN-ACK segment with the correct destination port and
address and source port, provided the SYN-ACK's full address,
including source address, does not match another connection and the
sequence numbers in the SYN-ACK are correct.) This approach ensures
that a TCP, after receiving the SYN-ACK is always communicating with
only one host.
Emphasis mine.
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It's not too late at all.
The HTTP server can redirect you based on your location.
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It is actually a pretty complicated problem, finding the IP address of the nearest host based on a domain name, solved in a fairly elegant way.
The only problem here is that you are being passed the address near Google instead of your ISP, which means that you miss out on the benefits of finding a host nearby that is only a few hops away.
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Re:Hrmmm (Score:5, Insightful)
No, it's not particularly elegant. But on the other hand, split-horizon DNS is nothing new or magical either. Nor would I classify it as "abuse". The capability has been there since the early days of BIND.
In the DNS trade, we refer to it under the category of "stupid DNS tricks"
That said, it does have some significant advantages over other techniques.
#1, It's protocol-independent. Sure you can do intelligent redirects with HTTP, but not everything in the world is HTTP
#2, Even with HTTP, in order for it to work, you have to now change the name of the server, and often the links to internal content. Your initial request to www.domain.com will now have to be redirected to hostx.domain.com or www.location.domain.com etc., and links on the pages to content servers will also have to be altered. This can be confusing to end-users, and may require additional SSL certs. It's also a code maintenance issue.
#2a, While the renaming seems trivial on first glance, it has HUGE implications for search engines, etc, since those "local" servers will get indexed instead of a generic name
#2b, It also means that a calculation will have to be made by the web server deciding where to redirect you to, then the actual redirect, increasing load and latency. DNS solutions are "pre-computed" and thus do not have similar issues.
#2c, If you solve 2a by checking every request at every location, you make 2b much worse
#3, It's simple.
Downsides:
#1, Third-party DNS recursive services throw it off. (There is a proposed RFC that would allow for such recursives to pass the originating network in the request)
#2, It makes DNSSEC a right royal PITA (Much more than it already is)
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It must be Apple's "magic" that's causing the trouble.
No, it is not Apple's fault. Anyone using Akamai would have the same problem. I think Microsoft use them for Windows Updates too.
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Right... Without DRM, but with a watermark (in other words, if you download a Miley Cyrus song and share it, anyone else who gets access to it can track it back to you)
That being said, I have a lot of trouble getting upset over the fact that purchased content is watermarked. As long as I'm not distributing the content, who cares?
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1.2.3.45 same as my luggage uses.
Re:WTF (Score:4, Funny)
WTF is iTunes?
It's the virus that is installed when you update Quicktime.