Method and system for increasing speed of domain name system resolution within a computing device

• US 8,671,221 B2
• Filed: 02/24/2011
• Issued: 03/11/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 11/17/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Web Spark Ltd.
• Original Assignee: Hola Networks Ltd.
• Inventors: Shribman, Derry, Vilenski, Ofer
• Primary Examiner(s): Pollack, Melvin H
• Application Number:
  US13/034,239
• Publication Number:
  US 20120124239A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,111 Days
• Field of Search: 709/245
• US Class Current: 709/245
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/951 Indexing; Web crawling techniques
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0806 for initial configuration or provisioning, e.g. plug-and-play
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 61/103 across network layers, e.g. resolution of network layer into physical layer addresses or address resolution protocol [ARP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 61/4511 using domain name system [DNS]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 61/4552 Lookup mechanisms between a plurality of directories; Synchronisation of directories, e.g. metadirectories
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 61/5053 Lease time; Renewal aspects
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 61/58 Caching of addresses or names
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/568 Storing data temporarily at an intermediate stage, e.g. caching

Abstract

A system for resolving domain name system (DNS) queries, contains a communication device for resolving DNS queries, wherein the communication device further contains a memory and a processor that is configured by the memory, a cache storage for use by the communication device, and a network of authoritative domain name servers, where in a process of the communication device looking up a DNS request within the cache storage, if the communication device views an expired DNS entry within the cache storage, the communication device continues the process of looking up the DNS request in the cache storage while, in parallel, sending out a concurrent DNS request to an authoritative domain name server that the expired DNS entry belongs to.

Claims

1. A system for resolving domain name system (DNS) queries, comprising:

a communication device configured to resolve DNS queries, wherein the communication device further comprises a memory and a processor that is configured by the memory;

a cache storage for use by the communication device; and

a network of authoritative domain name servers,

where in a process of the communication device looking up a DNS request within the cache storage, if the communication device views an expired DNS entry within the cache storage, the communication device continues the process of looking up the DNS request in the cache storage while, in parallel, sending out a concurrent DNS request to an authoritative domain name server that the expired DNS entry belongs to.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein if the query sent to the authoritative domain name server that the expired DNS entry belongs to returns the same answer as the expired DNS entry stored within the cache storage then the communication device uses a final result received when it used the expired DNS entry to resolve the DNS request.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein if the query sent to the authoritative domain name server that the expired DNS entry belongs to returns a different answer than the expired DNS entry stored within the cache storage then the result received by using the expired DNS entry from the cache is ignored and the new DNS entry is used to resolve the DNS query.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the cache storage is located within the communication device.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the cache storage is located remotely from the communication device.

6. The system of claim 1, further comprising an external DNS recursor, and wherein the process of the communication device looking up a DNS request within the cache storage further comprises the communication device communicating with the external DNS recursor and the external DNS recursor directly looking up the DNS request within the cache storage.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein the process of the communication device continuing the process of looking up the DNS request in its cache while, in parallel, sending out a concurrent DNS request to an authoritative domain name server that the expired DNS entry belongs to, is repeated each time that the communication device views an expired DNS entry within the cache storage.

8. A system for resolving domain name system (DNS) queries, comprising:

a communication device configured to resolve DNS queries, wherein the communication device further comprises a memory and a processor that is configured by the memory;

a cache storage for use by the communication device; and

a network of authoritative domain name servers,

wherein for each set of authoritative domain name servers within the network of authoritative domain name servers that exist for a DNS request, the communication device queries more than one authoritative domain name server in parallel and uses a first answer received from the set of authoritative domain name servers as a final answer to that DNS level request.

9. The system of claim 8, wherein the cache storage is located within the communication device.

10. The system of claim 8, wherein the cache storage is located remotely from the communication device.

11. A system for resolving domain name system (DNS) queries, comprising:

a communication device configured to resolve DNS queries, wherein the communication device further comprises a memory and a processor that is configured by the memory;

a multitude of DNS recursors that are available to the computing device through a network; and

a DNS resolver located within the communication device;

wherein the DNS resolver of the communication device contains a list of a multitude of DNS recursors that are available to the communication device through the network and when the DNS resolver needs to do a DNS lookup, the DNS resolver queries more than one of the multitude of DNS recursors concurrently and uses the result from the DNS recursor that first provides an answer.

12. The system of claim 11, wherein the list of DNS recursors is created by querying local interfaces of the communication device to find a default recursor for each such interface.

13. The system of claim 12, wherein DNS recursors within the multitude of DNS recursors that are available on the network are manually configured in the system.