hm. i count 10% of initial queries failing with a domain doesn't exist error, and that information then being cached so subsequent queries always fail, as being, as i said, a rather major problem. earthshaking, no; major, yes. many servers, in this instance, helps, but because the problem manifested itself as a root server not being *down*, but returning actually false information, the redundancy of the root servers meant that the odds were lower of failure, not that failure was avoided. a lot of mail was bouncing ("host unknown", on valid hosts), and a lot of queries were failing. am i "soooo important"? no. and i can flush my nameserver's cache to take care of a 1 in 10 problem looking up a site i'm trying to look up. but my users, and yours, are so important. and, happily, mr. fields, on his way to bed in maryland last night, wasn't so condescending. -Qarin Van Brink queue@scruz.net On Feb 14, 11:20, Randy Bush wrote: } Subject: Re: root server update } > what did you do to try to fix or notify someone of this (rather major) } > problem? } } major? funny, but i thought that was why we had many servers. } } and, not realizing it was a major earthshaking event, i sent email. silly } me. } } randy }-- End of excerpt from Randy Bush