ENHANCING DNS AVAILABILITY

• US 20160269356A1
• Filed: 03/12/2015
• Published: 09/15/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 03/12/2015
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: General Motors LLC (General Motors Company)
• Original Assignee: General Motors LLC (General Motors Company)
• Inventors: Droste, Scott T., Basnayake, Chaminda, George, David
• Granted Patent: US 9,912,634 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 61/4511 using domain name system [DNS]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 61/5014 using dynamic host configuration protocol [DHCP] or bootstrap protocol [BOOTP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/12 specially adapted for proprietary or special-purpose networking environments, e.g. medical networks, sensor networks, networks in vehicles or remote metering networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/44 for communication between vehicles and infrastructures, e.g. vehicle-to-cloud [V2C] or vehicle-to-home [V2H]
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 84/005 Moving wireless networks

Abstract

A system and method for providing an address for a Domain Name System (DNS) server to a consumer device, wherein the consumer device connects to the Internet through a vehicle, includes providing an address for a default DNS server to the consumer device; receiving a request from the consumer device to convert a domain name to an Internet Protocol (IP) address using the default DNS server; forwarding the request to the default DNS server; determining if the request has been resolved by the default DNS server within a time-to-respond limit; and updating the consumer device with a different address for a DNS server retrieved from a list stored in vehicle hardware if the request has not been resolved within the time-to-respond limit.

Claims

1. A method for providing an address for a Domain Name System (DNS) server to a consumer device, wherein the consumer device connects to the Internet through a vehicle, the method comprising the steps of:

providing an address for a default DNS server to the consumer device;

receiving a request from the consumer device to convert a domain name to an Internet Protocol (IP) address using the default DNS server;

forwarding the request to the default DNS server;

determining if the request has been resolved by the default DNS server within a time-to-respond limit; and

updating the consumer device with a different address for a DNS server retrieved from a list stored in vehicle hardware if the request has not been resolved within the time-to-respond limit.

2. The method of claim 1, further including ranking entries in the list based on performance characteristics associated with each DNS server in the list.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein updating the consumer device with the DNS server address includes retrieving from the list the highest ranking DNS server entry in the list.

4. The method of claim 2, wherein the performance characteristics for each DNS server in the list include domain name resolution time.

5. The method of claim 1, further including adding to the list one or more DNS servers received from a wireless carrier system.

6. The method of claim 1, further including updating the DNS server entries in the list when a new DNS server is received and when new performance information is available.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein updating the consumer device with the DNS server from the list is achieved via dynamic host configuration protocol (DHCP).

8. The method of claim 6, further including providing to the consumer device a lease time associated with the default DNS server via DHCP.

9. The method of claim 7, further including receiving a request to update the consumer device via DHCP when half of the lease time has elapsed.

10. A method for providing an address for a Domain Name System (DNS) server to a consumer device, wherein the consumer device connects to the Internet through a vehicle, the method comprising the steps of:

providing an address for a default DNS server and a lease time to the consumer device via dynamic host configuration protocol (DHCP);

receiving a request from the consumer device to convert a domain name to an Internet Protocol (IP) address using the default DNS server;

maintaining a list of DNS servers in the vehicle hardware, wherein the DNS servers are ranked according to performance characteristics; and

updating the consumer device via DHCP with a different address for a DNS server retrieved from the list.

11. The method of claim 10, further including adding to the list one or more DNS servers received from a wireless carrier system.

12. The method of claim 10, wherein updating the consumer device with the DNS server address includes retrieving from the list the highest ranking DNS server entry in the list.

13. The method of claim 10, wherein the performance characteristics for each DNS server in the list include domain name resolution time.

14. The method of claim 10, further including updating the DNS server entries in the list when a new entry is received and when new performance information is available.

15. The method of claim 10, further including receiving a request to update the consumer device via DHCP when half of the lease time has elapsed.

16. A system for connecting a consumer device to the Internet and for providing an address for a Domain Name System (DNS) server to the consumer device, the system comprising:

vehicle hardware and/or a vehicle telematics unit individually or in combination configured to;

provide an address for a default DNS server and a lease time to the consumer device via dynamic host configuration protocol (DHCP);

receive a request from the consumer device to convert a domain name to an Internet Protocol (IP) address using the default DNS server;

maintain a list of DNS servers in the vehicle hardware, wherein the DNS servers are ranked according to performance characteristics; and

update the consumer device via DHCP with a DNS server retrieved from the list.

17. The system of claim 16, wherein updating the consumer device with the DNS server address includes retrieving from the list the highest ranking DNS server entry in the list.

18. The method of claim 16, wherein the performance characteristics for each DNS server in the list include domain name resolution time.

19. The method of claim 16, further including updating the DNS server entries in the list when a new entry is received and when new performance information is available.

20. The method of claim 16, further including receiving a request to update the consumer device via DHCP when half of the lease time has elapsed.