DNS in the Wild
---------------

To contribute to the DNS in the Wild Project please download and start the
program. As it is written in Python it should run on any computer / operating
system where Python 2.5, 2.6 or 2.7 is installed. This is the case by default
on most Linux distributions and MacOS. 

Thank you for your help.

The DNS in the Wild Project Team:
Bernhard Ager, Wolfgang Mühlbauer,
Georgios Smaragdakis, Steve Uhlig


Operation & Installation
-------------------------

Our program performs DNS queries for a number of predefined hosts. This list
is included in plain text in the download packages. Periodically, our program
performs traceroutes towards predefined DNS resolvers (your local resolver,
GoogleDNS, and OpenDNS). The traces collected with our program do not interact
with any of your browsing or download history or activity. The additional
bandwidth consumption and CPU load due to the experiment are negligible.
Please run it from an Internet connection provided by a commercial ISP, e.g.,
at home. The average duration of the experiment is six hours on a DSL
connection.


Un*x/MacOS version and source code:

Tested on Linux, MacOS and FreeBSD. Should run on any machine with Python 2.5,
2.6 or 2.7, even if not Un*x based, and comes with full source code. Download,
extract and run dnstest.py.


Specific Instructions:

We tested this recipe on Linux, FreeBSD and MacOS: Open a terminal and give
the following instructions (copy & paste):

wget http://cs-people.bu.edu/gsmaragd/research/Cartography/DNS-code/dnstest_unix+macos.tar.bz2
tar xjf dnstest_unix+macos.tar.bz2
cd dnstest_unix+macos
./dnstest.py



FAQ
---

* How long will the script run?

Typically a measurement run will take between 5 and 7 hours. The script will
restart itself and start a new trace after 24 hours until you stop it by
pressing Ctrl-C. You are welcome to upload as many traces as you want.


*There are thousands of tracesroutes in the queue!

Don't worry. The queue will get shorter while the script runs. Wait until both
traceroutes and DNS queries are finished before uploading the results. The
script will explicitly tell you when it's done.


* Which hosts are these?

You can find the list of hosts in the file 'hosts'.


* Which resolvers?

OpenDNS, Google Pubic DNS, and your local resolver.


* Which private information is leaked by running the scripts?

Your IP address and, for debugging purposes only, the operating system in use.


* Why manual trace upload?

We want to give you the chance to inspect the results before you upload them.


* How can I read the results?

On Linux: 'bzcat results-12345.txt.bz2 | less'. 

Note that you should definitely upload the compressed file as the uncompressed
version can become quite large.


* I get an Exception on startup.

Most likely the Python version your machine uses by default is not compatible.
You can try to enforce Python 2.5, 2.6 or 2.7 by explicitly naming the script
interpreter. One of the commands below should hopefully work:

python2 ./dnspython.py

python25 ./dnspython.py

python26 ./dnspython.py

python27 ./dnspython.py


* Contact details

For further technical information and your comments please do not hesitate to
contact us by mail: georgios@net.t-labs.tu-berlin.de