Stats contain 'a.root-servers.net' as the only domain

jwall592 · ‎04-20-2017

It was my understanding that I could track some of the browser history going through my router by using OpenDNS. I made the account, added the network with my public IP, and I set the Primary and Secondary DNS entries in my router's network setup page.

It's been about 30 hours since I made this change to my router. But the only domain I see listed in my state page is 'a.root-servers.net'.

Is this all I will get? I know that there has been a lot of web activity going through my router from this PC. I assumed OpenNDS.com would be listed as a domain hit?

Am I just entirely misunderstanding what I thought this would do?

Thanks.

rotblitz · ‎04-20-2017

"I could track some of the browser history going through my router by using OpenDNS."

Your DNS traffic and related stats are only loosly related to web traffic. DNS is about everything where domain names are being used, not just web traffic. So you'll hardly match up your browser history with DNS stats. And your router has nothing to do with collecting your DNS stats.

The fact that you only see a root server domain indicates you using an own internal DNS server with root hints enabled. Therefore only the lookups for root servers go to OpenDNS. You must disable the root hints to make all your DNS traffic to go to OpenDNS.

And no, root servers is not all you will get. See here an example extract of my OpenDNS stats (in fact without any root servers):

jwall592 · ‎04-20-2017

Thanks for the reply. I will look into my router settings to see if there's some sort of internal DNS server I've got enabled. I am aware that it won't be close to browser history; it will only be domains like you have shown. I would be happy enough with that for now .. if I could get it. Will check my settings later today.

rotblitz · ‎04-20-2017

Ah, you don't run a distinct DNS server, just the router? Then it is less likely that the root hints are the root cause of your problem. It might be something else like IPv6 connectivity or an Avast Security Suite being used.

If you cannot solve the problem with your router settings, copy & paste the complete plain text outputs of the following diagnostic commands to here, so that I can analyze further:

nslookup -type=txt debug.opendns.com. 208.67.220.220
nslookup -type=txt which.opendns.com.
nslookup whoami.akamai.net.

jwall592 · ‎04-20-2017

Made another DNS settings change to the DHCP section of the router config. Found a spot where the OpenDNS DNS servers were not entered. Works now.

Thanks for your input!

rotblitz · ‎04-20-2017

Excellent, glad to hear!