What is a.rootservers.net?

[meme20166]

Anybody know what a.rootservers.net is or means? Its been requested over 3000 times on my home wifi network within a 24 hour period. Even when the only thing connected is smartphones. Ive turned all my wifi devices off today and I'm waiting to see if it still shows, ive checked the website and I don't know why or what would be requesting it? Any ideas?

Thanks!

[rotblitz]

This is the A root server farm, one of 13 root server farms in the world, the highest level in the DNS hierarchy.

  e.root-servers.net.
  f.root-servers.net.
  k.root-servers.net.
  a.root-servers.net.
  d.root-servers.net.
  g.root-servers.net.
  i.root-servers.net.
  j.root-servers.net.
  b.root-servers.net.
  l.root-servers.net.
  h.root-servers.net.
  c.root-servers.net.
  m.root-servers.net.

[meme20166]

Thanks, ive read a little about that although I just wanted to make sure 3000 a.root-servers.net requests would be normal? I ean I have one computer that's switched off overnight and when not in use and a smart phone so I thought it was a bit excessive? Should I block it?

[rotblitz]

Why would you block it?  Do you deem it dangerous?  If you block it, some things may not work anymore.

And no, it is not normal.  If using a recursive DNS service like OpenDNS, there should be no reason to query the root servers.  Something is wrongly configured in your network, or your router or internal DNS server has strange firmware, querying the root servers directly instead of querying the recursive DNS service.  We cannot know what it is, you have to find out yourself.  Only you know your equipment.

[Anonymous]

Hi i have the same problem but i think i know the issue. the a.root-servers.net has a lot of hits per day. i use adguard on my smartphone and i have enable DNS filtering. even though i use system default DNS which are opendns from router , adguard filters all DNS request. so maybe is that that contacts the the a.root-servers.net. in order to know that i must stop using adguard for a day or so to see if a.root-servers.net comes up again.