Exploring Domain Name Based Features on the Effectiveness of DNS Caching

Abstract

DNS cache plays a critical role in domain name resolution, providing (1) high scalability at Root and Top-level-domain (TLD) name servers with reduced workloads and (2) low response latency to clients when the resource records of the queried domains are cached. However, the pervasive misuses of domain names, e.g., the domains of ``one-time-use'' pattern, have negative impact on the effectiveness of DNS caching as the cache has been filled with those entries that are highly unlikely to be retrieved. In this paper, we investigate such misuse and identify domain name-based features to characterize those one-time domains. By leveraging the features that are explicitly available from the domain name itself, we build a classifier to combine these features, propose simple policy modifications on caching resolvers for improving DNS cache performance, and validate their efficacy using real traces.