[ubuntu-za] Traceroutes to za.releases.ubuntu.com

[Andrew Alston]

Hi All,

 

Sorry for the repeat request, but it would seem certain people on this list
are rather over sensitive about their spotlights and subject lines in
emails!

 

In order to make the Hardy release more of a success in South Africa and to
gear up the capacity for distribution of the release, we have split the
servers to do anycasted load balancing, allowing for the closest geographic
server to serve the related content.

 

However, due to the complexity of this solution, we need to be 100% sure
that the route announcements for the anycast dns resolver are actually
functioning as planned.

 

As such, as requested in another email which Jonathon thought was his little
thread and where he needed his spotlight protected, I will need the
following information to verify this setup is working:

 

A couple of traceroutes from people who plan to use za.releases.ubuntu.com
and za.archive.ubuntu.com, along with information about where in the country
you are located (general geographic region) and which ISP you are utilizing.

 

This will help us determine if we need any further anycast points on the
network for better redirection.

 

For general information for those interested, the current setup is as
follows:

 

The basic current setup is explained below:

 

                za.archive.ubuntu.com is a c-name for
ubuntu-archive.mirror.ac.za

                za.releases.ubuntu.com is a c-name for
ubuntu-release.mirror.ac.za

                Ubuntu.mirror.ac.za is a direct A record.

 

Mirror.ac.za has a delegated NS record to anycast.tenet.ac.za.

 

The anycast.tenet.ac.za IP address block is announced in 3 places. 

 

Firstly, in Johannesburg, if a DNS query comes to this server, it replies
with a Unicast address for the Johannesburg server.  This server is equipped
with a 10gigabit interface  and serves the Johannesburg Internet Exchange
and Internet Solutions Johannesburg, as well as limited transit to people
who have declined to peer at JINX.

 

Secondly, in Cape Town, this server has a gigabit interface, and serves
Internet Solutions Cape Town breakout, as well as limited transit to
companies that peer with I.S in Cape town.  We do not serve direct JINX
peers at this point.  DNS Queries against this anycast instance reply with
the Cape Town unicast.

 

Thirdly, we announce the space in London, the London instance of the DNS
replies with 2 Unicast addresses, one for the Cape Town and one for the
Johannesburg server, in order to load balance international traffic between
the two servers.   We have a total of 300mbit of international outbound
capacity to carry this load, and this is normally where the vast majority of
the load to these servers comes from (we tend to get a large number of hits
from the middle/far east).

 

Any traceroutes and information would be hugely appreciated though

 

Thanks

 

Andrew Alston

TENET - Chief Technology Officer / mirror.ac.za Administrator

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