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DNSTools feedback wanted!

Daniel15Daniel15 Veteran
in General

Back in 2007, I launched https://dnstools.ws/, primarily focused on DNS lookups.

At the start of 2020 I completely rewrote the site, focusing on a better user experience, improving the performance, and adding the ability to perform DNS lookups, pings, traceroutes, etc. from several locations around the world - currently around 30 locations. There’s a few other sites that have features like this, but a lot of them have a pretty poor UI (eg. they just show raw traceroute output) so I was attempting to make a better one. I've also open-sourced the codebase.

The ping tool lets you either ping one host from multiple locations, or multiple hosts from one location, which is something I don't think I've seen in similar tools.

I recently realised that even though there's been some discussion about the site on this forum, I've never asked for feedback directly. I'd love to gather some feedback about the site - things you like, things that could be improved, new features that you'd like to see, etc. There's a list of existing feature requests on GitHub.

Thanks!

Thanked by 9Not_Oles Donkey martheen _MS_ Chuck Ympker mrTom adly pike

Comments

  • Not_OlesNot_Oles Moderator, Patron Provider

    Hello! I took a quick look at the site awhile back. I think the site looks quite nice! I haven't tried the tools yet, so I can't comment on them. Open source is great! Now I'm gonna go look at the sources. . . . Thank you! 🍫

  • szarkaszarka Member
    edited June 2022

    This looks pretty slick. One comment from my first look: in the following traceroute, the penultimate hop is identified as "Los Angeles", but the router is definitely in the NYC metro area. The IP is in a block SWIPed to DediPath, with a Hockessin address, so you're not getting "Los Angeles" from there. Not clear whether it's supposed to be the location of the company or of the router, but either way I think the output is misleading/wrong there.

    Austria
0.3ms 185.175.59.1
Vienna, AustriaAS63473 HOSTHATCH
1
0.4ms 185.210.219.49
Vienna, AustriaAS9009 M247 Ltd
2
Timed Out
3
1.2ms vlan2911.bb2.vie1.at.m247.com (82.102.29.36)
Las Vegas, United StatesAS9009 M247 Ltd
4
0.7ms te0-3-0-4-6.ccr51.vie01.atlas.cogentco.com (149.6.174.89)
Paris, FranceAS174 COGENT-174
5
6.4ms be2974.ccr21.muc03.atlas.cogentco.com (154.54.58.5)
United StatesAS174 COGENT-174
6
12.1ms be2959.ccr41.fra03.atlas.cogentco.com (154.54.36.53)
United StatesAS174 COGENT-174
7
21.3ms be2799.ccr41.par01.atlas.cogentco.com (154.54.58.234)
United StatesAS174 COGENT-174
8
92.3ms be3627.ccr41.jfk02.atlas.cogentco.com (66.28.4.197)
United StatesAS174 COGENT-174
9
92.4ms be2273.rcr21.ewr03.atlas.cogentco.com (154.54.83.206)
United StatesAS174 COGENT-174
10
92.6ms be2040.nr51.b045024-0.ewr03.atlas.cogentco.com (154.24.37.42)
United StatesAS174 COGENT-174
11
92.5ms 38.104.74.130
Ridgewood, United StatesAS174 COGENT-174
12
90.6ms border1-po2-bbnet2.nyj004.pnap.net (216.52.95.109)
United StatesAS13789 INTERNAP-BLK3
13
90.1ms dedipath-48.border1.nyj004.pnap.net (74.201.164.150)
United StatesAS13789 INTERNAP-BLK3
14
146.1ms 45.92.192.123
Los Angeles, United StatesAS35913 DEDIPATH-LLC
15
90.4ms na1.distiq.net (185.228.19.250)
Secaucus, United StatesAS35913 DEDIPATH-LLC
16

    Edit: Oh, yeah. Definitely something weird going on. Pretty obviously, packets aren't getting from BHS to France in <1 ms. 😆

    Canada
0.1ms 2607:5300:60:968c::
CanadaAS16276 OVH SAS
1
0.8ms 2001:41d0:0:50::2:3114
FranceAS16276 OVH SAS
2
0.1ms 2001:41d0:0:50::6:87a
FranceAS16276 OVH SAS
3
  • GravelyGravely Member

    A full DNS overview would be great!

    https://dnsape.com does it really well

    Thanked by 1vpsGOD
  • Daniel15Daniel15 Veteran
    edited June 2022

    @szarka said: This looks pretty slick. One comment from my first look: in the following traceroute, the penultimate hop is identified as "Los Angeles", but the router is definitely in the NYC metro area. The IP is in a block SWIPed to DediPath, with a Hockessin address, so you're not getting "Los Angeles" from there. Not clear whether it's supposed to be the location of the company or of the router, but either way I think the output is misleading/wrong there.

    I'm using MaxMind's free GeoIP database, which says that 45.92.192.123 is in Los Angeles. You can try it here: https://www.maxmind.com/en/geoip-demo

    All of these are wrong too:

    0.7ms te0-3-0-4-6.ccr51.vie01.atlas.cogentco.com (149.6.174.89)
Paris, FranceAS174 COGENT-174
5
6.4ms be2974.ccr21.muc03.atlas.cogentco.com (154.54.58.5)
United StatesAS174 COGENT-174
6
12.1ms be2959.ccr41.fra03.atlas.cogentco.com (154.54.36.53)
United StatesAS174 COGENT-174
7
21.3ms be2799.ccr41.par01.atlas.cogentco.com (154.54.58.234)
United StatesAS174 COGENT-174

    https://db-ip.com/ is a lot better but they don't have a free plan, and their paid plans are really out of my price range given I make no money from the site.

    https://ipinfo.io/ looks decent (not as good as DB-IP, but better than MaxMind) and it looks like they have a free plan for up to 50k requests per month. I'll try their database and see how well it works.

    I'll track it here: https://github.com/Daniel15/dnstools/issues/77

    Thanked by 1szarka
  • Daniel15Daniel15 Veteran

    @Gravely said:
    A full DNS overview would be great!

    https://dnsape.com does it really well

    This is interesting. Looks like they just query for every type of record. I could add something like that, but I'd need to think of how to format it well, since I'd want to allow you to do it from multiple locations.

  • szarkaszarka Member

    The other feedback that came to mind immediately is, I hope you're doing something to keep the multi-source pings from getting abused. :)

    This is a really nice tool, though. And, even though I don't really care about the fancy graphics, I'm happy to see that you have nice bright letters against that dark background. My eyes aren't what they used to be.

    Thanked by 1Daniel15
  • GravelyGravely Member

    @Daniel15 said:

    @Gravely said:
    A full DNS overview would be great!

    https://dnsape.com does it really well

    This is interesting. Looks like they just query for every type of record. I could add something like that, but I'd need to think of how to format it well, since I'd want to allow you to do it from multiple locations.

    Its a great feature. Especially if you would like to query what services a domain is using.

  • eKoeKo Member

    a clickable logo which port back to the homepage would be nice, thanks!

  • ArkasArkas Moderator

    The site looks great, congrats! I played around with the tools, good speed and seems accurate!

    Thanked by 1Daniel15
  • Daniel15Daniel15 Veteran
    edited June 2022

    One other thing... I've been thinking of rebranding it at some point given it's not just for DNS lookups any more. I have the domains mtr.to and networktest.org and was thinking about using the latter. What do you think?

    @szarka said: This looks pretty slick. One comment from my first look: in the following traceroute, the penultimate hop is identified as "Los Angeles", but the router is definitely in the NYC metro area.

    I've just swapped MaxMind for ipinfo.io. Let me know if it looks better now :smile:

    I tried your particular query from Austria and it seems better: https://dnstools.ws/traceroute/na1.distiq.net/?proto=Ipv4&workers=at

    @eKo said:
    a clickable logo which port back to the homepage would be nice, thanks!

    The form to run a tool is at the bottom of every page, which should in theory minimise the need to go to the home page (since you can just scroll down to the bottom).

    Having said that, I think this is a good idea and I've been thinking about adding a nav bar at the top of the page for a while. Just not sure what to put in it.

  • ArkasArkas Moderator

    @Daniel15 said: networktest.org

    That sounds good!!

    Thanked by 1ralf
  • szarkaszarka Member
    edited June 2022

    @Daniel15 said:
    One other thing... I've been thinking of rebranding it at some point given it's not just for DNS lookups any more. I have the domains mtr.to and networktest.org and was thinking about using the latter. What do you think?

    networktest seems more descriptive; mtr too obscure.

    I've just swapped MaxMind for ipinfo.io. Let me know if it looks better now :smile:

    It does. Though, at first I thought your site was badly-broken when trying to trace to OVH, but, no. Looks like maybe they are filtering ICMP after some point? Even internally. I wonder whether their DDoS protection is on right now, since that's not an issue I remember seeing in the past.

  • ElonBezosElonBezos Member

    I have the domains mtr.to and networktest.org

    @Daniel15 good Lord how many other best domain names are with you? ;)

    note: yes i usually use your dnstools.ws cz the result is very informative, thx

  • _MS__MS_ Member

    I've been using this for around three years now.

    @Daniel15 said: I've been thinking of rebranding it at some point

    I was going to suggest that you move the domain from that .ws ccTLD but seems like you already have that in mind :)

  • Daniel15Daniel15 Veteran

    MS said:
    I've been using this for around three years now.

    @Daniel15 said: I've been thinking of rebranding it at some point

    I was going to suggest that you move the domain from that .ws ccTLD but seems like you already have that in mind :)

    Yeah it's showing its age a bit... I bought it back in 2007 when .ws was popular, similar to how .io has been popular for a few years now.

  • ralfralf Member

    @Daniel15 said:
    I'm using MaxMind's free GeoIP database, which says that 45.92.192.123 is in Los Angeles. You can try it here: https://www.maxmind.com/en/geoip-demo

    For me this gives a result about 3 miles away from my house.

    https://db-ip.com/ is a lot better but they don't have a free plan, and their paid plans are really out of my price range given I make no money from the site.

    This one for me is 100 miles from my house!

    https://ipinfo.io/ looks decent (not as good as DB-IP, but better than MaxMind) and it looks like they have a free plan for up to 50k requests per month. I'll try their database and see how well it works.

    And about 2 miles in a different direction from my house.

    I think most people know that geo-IP is difficult, but I'm not sure it's possible to pick a "best" one as it depends on what you're testing. The real problem with all these is that there's no confidence level built in. All the coordinates are returned with 4 decimal places when in reality they're accurate to 2 decimal places at best.

  • 0xbkt0xbkt Member
    edited June 2022

    they just show raw traceroute output

    So should you. I personally dislike such tools when they don't spit out the format that my eyes are already familiar with parsing.

  • DPDP Administrator, The Domain Guy

    I think you've got the "essential" tools covered as it is 👍

    But what about having something like https://www.isitdownrightnow.com/ or https://www.freshworks.com/website-monitoring/is-it-down/ - checks and presents the current/live screenshot of the website, if it's online and accessible.

    Just a random suggestion :smiley:

  • mrTommrTom Member

    @Daniel15 said: https://db-ip.com/ is a lot better but they don't have a free plan

    but they... do?
    https://db-ip.com/db/download/ip-to-city-lite

    (its actually the default free database that is used/downloaded by piwik/matomo ever since maxmind have made their free database registration-only)

    btw i find the dns traversal tool of your site very useful.

  • Shot2Shot2 Member

    @Daniel15 said:
    One other thing... I've been thinking of rebranding it at some point given it's not just for DNS lookups any more. I have the domains mtr.to and networktest.org and was thinking about using the latter. What do you think?

    What about 'network·watch' ? o:)

  • TimboJonesTimboJones Member

    @ralf said:

    @Daniel15 said:
    I'm using MaxMind's free GeoIP database, which says that 45.92.192.123 is in Los Angeles. You can try it here: https://www.maxmind.com/en/geoip-demo

    For me this gives a result about 3 miles away from my house.

    https://db-ip.com/ is a lot better but they don't have a free plan, and their paid plans are really out of my price range given I make no money from the site.

    This one for me is 100 miles from my house!

    https://ipinfo.io/ looks decent (not as good as DB-IP, but better than MaxMind) and it looks like they have a free plan for up to 50k requests per month. I'll try their database and see how well it works.

    And about 2 miles in a different direction from my house.

    I think most people know that geo-IP is difficult, but I'm not sure it's possible to pick a "best" one as it depends on what you're testing. The real problem with all these is that there's no confidence level built in. All the coordinates are returned with 4 decimal places when in reality they're accurate to 2 decimal places at best.

    Geez, not too useful for the rest of us if all the results are relative to ralf's house. :D

  • Alex_LeoAlex_Leo Member

    Here's an idea, have a graph for pinging, and maybe screenshot creation and hosting for a few days. Kinda like ping.pe does right now https://i.ping.pe/Y/v/img_YvYIKxjz.png

  • mikecmikec Member

    @Daniel15 said:
    https://db-ip.com/ is a lot better but they don't have a free plan, and their paid plans are really out of my price range given I make no money from the site.

    https://ipinfo.io/ looks decent (not as good as DB-IP, but better than MaxMind) and it looks like they have a free plan for up to 50k requests per month. I'll try their database and see how well it works.

    You can try https://www.ip2location.io and it has free API plan with good accuracy.

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