Avoiding Rogers DNS breakage

[Colin McGregor]

On 12/14/09, Lennart Sorensen <lsorense-1wCw9BSqJbv44Nm34jS7GywD8/FfD2ys at public.gmane.org> wrote:
> On Sun, Dec 13, 2009 at 08:40:50PM -0500, D. Hugh Redelmeier wrote:
>> | From: Lennart Sorensen <lsorense-1wCw9BSqJbv44Nm34jS7GywD8/FfD2ys at public.gmane.org>
>>
>> | Easily fixed too.
>> |
>> | whatever dns it gives you by dhcp resolves to dns.*.rogers.com
>> |
>> | Lookup altdns.*.rogers.com and use that instead.  Perfectly sane normal
>> | DNS server.
>>
>> This requires manual intervention whenever they change DNS server IP
>> addresses.  I don't think that happens often -- perhaps a couple of
>> times in 10 years.  But still annoying.
>
> Not as annoying as their helpful DNS server, and no more annoying that
> using any other random alternate DNS server.  Changing DNS servers IP
> is not something anyone likes to do, so they tend not to change.
>
>> I think that if you are going to have to manually do anything, just
>> run your own nameserver, one that resolves stuff itself.  I find that
>> it just works.  OK, so root servers change a once in a blue moon but
>> your distro will probably update the list for you.
>
> I know some ISPs have interceptered the DNS lookup failure packets
> and inserted their own 'helpful search DNS' answer, although I don't
> think rogers does that.  Using the ISPs alternate DNS should certainly
> stay working.

I don't know if Rogers does it everywhere they operate, but at least
in Toronto DNS look-up failures would send you to a Rogers advertising
loaded "help" page. More annoying, given the "quality" of Rogers DNS
server, was situations where I would ask for "www.rogers.com", get
sent to the "help" page (at rogers.com) which would ask if I really
wanted "www.rogers.com"!?!?! I saw the same behaviour in a number of
other "major" websites, such as ibm.com... In other words Rogers has a
worse than useless DNS server.

My solution to the above has been to set-up an in-house DNS server...

Further, Rogers technical support is also about as bad as their DNS
server. Two years ago all the machines at my home were, with one
exception, running Linux, the one exception being an old Sun Solaris
box. I call Rogers regarding signal outages, and they tell me that
unless I am running MS-Windows or Mac OS-X they can't help me. So, I
get a cheap used Mac OS-X box and then I get told that since I am not
running MS-Windows I don't know anything about computers...

A complaint to then still alive Ted Rogers got me an unhelpful call
from one of his assistants...

One of my big mistakes when I first got my Rogers high-speed account
was to pass out my Rogers e-mail address. So for the last while I have
been phasing out said account, and a project for early in the new year
will be to switch from Rogers to another high speed provider...

>> When an ISP's convenience services are inconvenient, just don't use
>> them.  I don't use Roger's "portal", their mail server, their DNS
>> (except for things for which they are authoritative).  I used their
>> usenet news server until they decided to improved that service (i.e.
>> dropped it).  I'm not even aware of any other services that they might
>> offer.
>
> I certainly don't use those things either.  I could setup my own internal
> DNS server, but I just haven't been bothered enough to do so.
>
>> ISP's subtract value when they "add value".  They want to become
>> indispensible to you (eg. owning your email address).  Wise consumers
>> won't let that happen.
>
> Hmm, I guess I might have an @rogers address somewhere.  I wonder what
> it is. :)
>
> --
> Len Sorensen
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