Not in the slightest. To the contrary, it's one of the more on-topic
postings I've seen as of late, and I mean that with all sincerity.
I am curious if anyone knows exactly what these two hops [9] [10]
below, actually are?
[...]
8 161 ms 157 ms * 68.87.226.130
9 169 ms 185 ms 171 ms 12.116.90.17
10 197 ms 198 ms 196 ms 12.122.114.66
11 157 ms 169 ms 175 ms ggr3-ge110.sffca.ip.att.net [12.122.82.169]
12 145 ms 149 ms 148 ms 192.205.33.82
13 182 ms 196 ms 209 ms ae-2-54.bbr2.SanJose1.Level3.net
If I had to guess, I'd say 9 is a /30 (/31?) on Comcast's transit
interface, and 10 is a backbone device of some sort. Suffice it to
say, AT&T doesn't consider maintaining accurate (or even inaccurate,
for that matter) PTR records a priority. Some recent faves include:
6 ggr3-ge00.n54ny.ip.att.net (12.123.0.97) 1.538 ms 1.400 ms 1.422 ms
7 att-gw.dc.aol.com (192.205.32.2) 1.775 ms 1.816 ms 1.847 ms
8 0.ge-5-1-0.XL4.NYC4.ALTER.NET (152.63.3.121) 1.701 ms 1.742 ms 14.988 ms
5 cw-gw.n54ny.ip.att.net (192.205.32.197) 0.648 ms 0.635 ms ggr3-p3122.n54ny.ip.att.net (192.205.33.117) 0.838 ms
6 tbr1-p012204.sl9mo.ip.att.net (12.122.82.22) 1.596 ms 1.759 ms 1.466 ms
San Francisco Bay Area cable modem networks have transitioned from @Home to AT&T Broadband to Comcast, so there is probably all sorts of expedient things done to keep it working through those transitions and IP addresses and IN-ADDR.ARPA files don't always align with how routers were divided up when companies buy/sell/exchange networks. There are probably still networks in NCR/Lucent/Olivette/AT&T that have odd IP
addresses from various mergers and splits over the years.
Occam's razor suggests those two hops are two routers in San Francisco connecting Comcast regional network to the AT&T common IP backbone for
transit to AT&T's peering connections with other Internet backbones.
Besides, why do you believe the text in an in-addr.arpa record? Or why do you think the absence of an in-addr.arpa record is meaningful?
Besides, why do you believe the text in an in-addr.arpa record? Or why do
you think the absence of an in-addr.arpa record is meaningful?
'cause i am a trusting sort... i tend to believe the DNS.
even more so when i can validate the signed replys...
the absence of DNS entries (forward or reverse) leads me
to beleive that address literals are still a useful attribute...
(although I find it tough to justify using octal representations)
Besides, why do you believe the text in an in-addr.arpa record? Or why
do
you think the absence of an in-addr.arpa record is meaningful?
Back in the old days, say 10 years ago, you
could run a network by the seat of your pants
using rules of thumb about interpretation of
in-addr.arpa records. And you could be quite
successful at running a network using such techniques
because everybody else was doing pretty much the
same thing. Because of this uniformity, you could make
a lot of intelligent guesses and resolve problems.
However, I think times have changed, there is no
longer uniformity among the people making technical
decisions about Internet networks and many rules
of thumb don't work any more even though they are
still out there in network operator folklore.
In fact, most people making network architectural
decisions about Internet networks don't participate
in NANOG any more. Most people making network operational
decisions also do not participate in NANOG anymore.
It's not just that many people have left NANOG behind,
but a lot of newcomers to the industry over the past
few years have not joined NANOG because they don't
get why it is relevant to them.
Not that I'm complaining about the message quoted above.
It is a great example of the useful information that one
can find in this mailing list. I wish there were more
messages like this one, i.e. people sharing info rather
than complaints and pleas for help.