User Friendly DNS Diagnosing Dashboard

Abstract

LK Domain Registry is the organization which handles the domain registration service for .lk country code top level domain in Sri Lanka. From various tasks with regards to domain registration that is handled by the technical division of LK Domain Registry, handling customer inquiries related to the functionality of their network services such as website and email is another task that they need to attend daily with increasing number of domain names each day. When handling above mentioned customer inquiries, a certain process involve in diagnosing the issue to check for any propagation delay or misconfigurations that can provide by the customer. The efficiency and effectiveness of this diagnose process depends on the knowledge and experience of the system engineer since he/she must follow various Linux commands and use third party tools such as intoDNS or MX toolbox to check how the propagation of the change in resource records have reflected on authoritative or recursive servers. This diagnose process may be difficult for a newcomer to adapt and learn quickly. As they use different tools there is no history maintained for these issues which otherwise would have provide more information that is useful for a system engineer with the use of past records. Considering the issues that arise in the traditional way of DNS diagnose procedure makes this project to initiate. Apart from this, understanding the practical context of DNS and the ability to study the actual work flow of a domain registry can be described as another motive for selection of this project. A software was designed and developed with a single point of diagnose capability where a certain user need to provide only the domain name where the complete diagnose process executes and provide user friendly message along with additional details regarding resource records. DNS bulk lookup, resource record change monitoring and report generation are some of the functionalities that is additionally provide by the system. The effort of implementation of the system is challenging yet rewarding at the same time. From the organizational perspective the employees will get the benefit of handling customer inquiries efficiently. From the software development and research perspective it will pave the path to develop more advanced and innovative solutions in the future.