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The weird and wonderful world of DNS LOC records (2014)

by avipars on 7/29/24, 11:26 AM with 59 comments

• by jgrahamc on 7/29/24, 2:51 PM

  Back in 2014 when I wrote this I said "CloudFlare handles millions of DNS records; of those just 743 are LOCs." I asked the team for an update and that number is now... 3,198.

• by bonyt on 7/29/24, 1:25 PM

  A friend of mine passed away last year and I use a domain named after her as a small memorial, sally.pro. I just gave it a LOC record pointing to a bench in the park that we adopted for her.

• by dgl on 7/29/24, 12:55 PM

  While the example here is broken, http://find.me.uk still works:

    $ dig loc SW1A1AA.find.me.uk
    
    ; <<>> DiG 9.10.6 <<>> loc SW1A1AA.find.me.uk
    ;; global options: +cmd
    ;; Got answer:
    ;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 63530
    ;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 1, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 1
    
    ;; OPT PSEUDOSECTION:
    ; EDNS: version: 0, flags:; udp: 512
    ;; QUESTION SECTION:
    ;SW1A1AA.find.me.uk.  IN LOC
    
    ;; ANSWER SECTION:
    SW1A1AA.find.me.uk. 21600 IN LOC 51 30 3.637 N 0 8 29.624 W 0.00m 0.00m 0.00m 0.00m

• by MiscIdeaMaker99 on 7/29/24, 12:47 PM

  Bummer. The example in the articles doesn't work.

    # dig geekatlas.com LOC @1.1.1.1
    
    ; <<>> DiG 9.20.0 <<>> geekatlas.com LOC @1.1.1.1
    ;; global options: +cmd
    ;; Got answer:
    ;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 19487
    ;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 0, AUTHORITY: 1,   ADDITIONAL: 1
    
    ;; OPT PSEUDOSECTION:
    ; EDNS: version: 0, flags:; udp: 1232
    ;; QUESTION SECTION:
    ;geekatlas.com.   IN LOC
    
    ;; AUTHORITY SECTION:
    geekatlas.com.  300 IN SOA ns1.namefind.com. dns.jomax.net.   2023031500 28800 7200 604800 300
    
    ;; Query time: 22 msec
    ;; SERVER: 1.1.1.1#53(1.1.1.1) (UDP)
    ;; WHEN: Mon Jul 29 08:46:31 EDT 2024
    ;; MSG SIZE  rcvd: 104

• by dpifke on 7/29/24, 3:35 PM

  LOC on reverse DNS seems a much more elegant solution than RFC 8805 Geofeeds (https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8805).

  In particular, it solves the discovery issue discussed in RFC 9092 (https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc9092), allows real-time updates, and would make it easier for ISPs to delegate maintenance of geolocation records to customers.

• by LinuxBender on 7/29/24, 1:04 PM

  I found this [1] for generating LOC records using Google Maps.

  Verified it works on another machine, my daily driver was blocking something. Also verified coordinates that it generates.

  [1] - https://dnsloc.net/

• by coolkil on 7/29/24, 1:47 PM

  Firstly I never knew Loc records existed… interesting to read something like this.

  Secondly I think cloudflare will see an (sizable???) increase in Loc records due to this article

• by philipwhiuk on 7/29/24, 6:00 PM

  I naively assumed this would be about localised caching. You'd think straight-line distance would be a reasonable proxy for speed.

  Hence you could have

  * google.com <LOC San Francisco>

  * google.com <LOC London>

  and pick the right one

  but that's not really how it works at all :(

• by mrngm on 7/29/24, 2:46 PM

  Earlier (and only) submission in 2014: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7508234

  Perhaps the title of this post can be edited to include [2014] as well.

• by fanf2 on 7/29/24, 6:31 PM

  I put a LOC record on cam.ac.uk set to 10km in diameter, so it basically covers the official precincts of the university which require that students live within 3 miles of the centre of the city.

• by teddyh on 7/29/24, 1:00 PM

  See also: DNS LOC: Geo-enabling the Domain Name System <https://www.ckdhr.com/dns-loc/>

• by Neil44 on 7/29/24, 1:30 PM

  I've just given us a LOC record, do I get a prize?

• by hurpdurpdurp on 7/29/24, 6:13 PM

  One of many strange features in DNS. I seem to recall a talk a few years ago where someone enumerated a variety of weird DNS capabilities and some interesting security consequences, but I don't remember the name of the talk or the speaker. Does anyone happen to know what I'm half-remembering?

• by ChilledTonic on 7/29/24, 2:38 PM

  This is interesting, but can anyone give me an example of using this for beyond just a simple easter egg? Presumably this had some real use to be added to the DNS spec.

• by jasonjayr on 7/29/24, 3:31 PM

  Hmm. Is there a tool to ping a list of LOC records and feed/update OSM automatically?

• by JohnMakin on 7/29/24, 6:02 PM

  Would be fun to make a scavenger hunt game using these.

• by avipars on 7/29/24, 6:18 PM

  Another good one is HINFO