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Hi HN!

Ruurtjan here, founder of Wirewiki.com. I recently tried to get autocomplete as fast as I could. I'll be checking in here the rest of the day to answer any questions.

Also happy to hear any suggestions for Wirewiki.

I'm working on https://www.wirewiki.com.

A browsable map of internet infrastructure. Not just a collection of lookup tools, but it also interlinks results, so you can navigate linked assets as well. Think: DNS lookup -> SPF record -> mail provider's SPF record -> IP address details.

Mostly back up now, but one server still times out: https://www.wirewiki.com/domains/tn/dns-trace

I launched Wirewiki yesterday and am working on it full-time by myself.

https://www.wirewiki.com

A browsable map of internet infrastructure.

Currently, it only hosts DNS-related data and tools, but I'm looking to add ASN, IP, registrar, CDN and hosting provider data.

I don't think I'll make a CLI for this any time soon.

The main thing I bring to the table with Wirewiki is UX, and I don't feel like I could do that well in a CLI.

It’s a wiki (loosely defined as an authoritative browsable graph / index) of everything that goes over the wire.

You're right that it doesn't do the name Wirewiki justice yet. I've got so many things planned to add at some point, much more than just DNS. Check again in 2 years' time ;)

The list of servers you're going to get with a naive scanning approach is not what you want.

Absolutely right. I'm doing uptime monitoring and a handful of checks (udp/tcp, nxdomain, dnssec, dns filtering) before listing them, but I feel like it could definitely be improved. Would love to talk! I'll send you an email.

You're the second person in these comments who points out faux name server redundancy. Interesting. I hadn't considered it as a major theme, but I'll move it up the list a little.

Authoritative drift.

This is why I query all authoritative name servers (as well as delegating name servers when querying NS records) in the DNS propagation tool. I haven't seen any other site do this. This feels like such an obvious thing to me, but somehow I'm the only one.

Yes. Ultimately nearly any tool can be used for good can also be used nefariously.

Internet infrastructure data is inherently open. I'm just presenting it in a more useful way. So any motivated actor can access it regradless.

In any case, exposing your IP during these lookups is bad operational security for them. So I would assume they'd prefer not to use Wirewiki.

All that to say: I don't feel conflicted about making these tools.

Those are really useful suggestions, thanks!

1) Include a link to dnsviz.net to check on the DNSSEC status of domains.

I use DNSViz all the time. They've done a great job of displaying the entire trail and helping debug DNSSEC issues. But it's a bit too detailed for my liking. I'm thinking about how I would add this to Wirewiki. What to show and hide by default, how to format it, etc. Adding something similar is pretty high on my list for Wirewiki.

2) Shared fate [...]

I do already show ASNs for A/AAAA records, but adding those to NS and MX addresses as well would be useful. I'm a bit hesitant to add more data to the overview, but a separate page that shows an analysis of shared name server resources could be useful indeed. I've added it to the list.

3) displaying whether a domain exists on popular block lists would be awesome.

Absolutely. Already on the list :)

You could spend the rest of your life building this and never actually completing it, be careful!

Haha, I've already spent 5 years, and I don't mind to keep going as long as it's interesting and sustainable!

There are a ton of online DNS tool sites, MxToolbox being one of the largest.

I like the idea of evolution (diversity + selection) applied here. Many people building it differently and letting the market decide what's most useful.

My take on this space is making it a browsable graph instead of 'just' a collection of lookup tools. The internet _is_ a graph, and it often makes sense to inspect linked resources (Domain name -> name server -> IP address, for example).

As for the longer-term vision, I'd like to make this graph as complete as possible. It now only has DNS-related tools, but adding ASNs, BGP data, hosting providers, etc. would make the existing tools more useful with every addition.

Oh thanks!

Depends on how you prefer to learn, but here are a few suggestions.

I've heard good things about the Computer Networks book by Tanenbaum and Wetherall, but I haven't read it myself. Very broad and comprehensive. The most hardcore way would be to make reading RFCs your hobby. It can be tough to get through, but if you regularly take half an hour to do it, you'll learn so much. I've recently started a course at https://classes.pracnet.net/, which is good too.

Also: ask me anything.

A slightly more complex, but much more responsive way would be to set an NS record of `where-is-the-iss.shkspr.mobi` that points to the IP of your VPS.

Then run a program that listens to UDP/53 and TCP/53. Have it respond with a DNS packet that's only dynamic in the LOC record and message ID. Not fully compliant with the DNS spec, but good enough for this use case.

You could cache API response to combat rate limiting.

Yeah, your tool is a lot simpler and can be less overwhelming for people who are not familiar with DNS. Don't think I'll remove any features from Nslookup. Good to have multiple DNS checkers for people to choose from :)

I’ve been working on Nslookup.io for years now. Let me know what you think I should improve to make it fit for your use cases at ImprovMX :)

A set of free online internet infrastructure inspection tools. Think DNS, IP, ASN, WHOIS, email config, etc. It will replace my current main project nslookup.io when it'll launch.

Beta is open at https://beta.nslookup.io (registration wall for now, but I'll remove it at launch).

In that case, I'd try to find an account manager at X and contact them directly via email or LinkedIn. They might be able to sort it out.

I also have two accounts btw. Didn't raise any flags. But their ad platform is buggy, so it might just be a coincidence.

Thanks :)

I don't recall onboarding being an issue for me. What are they telling you?

Hey HN! OP here.

I'm checking in the next couple of days, so feel free to ask me anything if you're thinking about setting up X ads yourself :)

I thought I'd repost this in honor of Factorio's expansion release today.

SPF and DKIM are not enough to harden email. Email can still be spoofed through a loophole in both specs.

See https://www.nslookup.io/learning/dmarc-a-practical-guide/

The RFC requires SMTP servers to first verify that the destination email indeed wants to receive those reports. They’re opt in through a DNS record.

https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc7489#section-7.1

If every developer had a solid understanding of DNS, there would be a lot fewer incidents.

I've done this for https://www.nslookup.io. Downloaded a list of the 1 million most popular domain names, scraped TXT records for them, and mined common patterns to add formatting with logos to the TXT records section.

Here they are for the example OP gave: https://www.nslookup.io/domains/stripe.com/dns-records/

Looks like I need to rerun the script and add some logos (:

As they should. If a domain name changes hands, the previous owner should have its ownership verification revoked.

Whatsapp's DNS records are back up now: https://www.nslookup.io/domains/web.whatsapp.com/dns-records...

Very relatable! I also went through 15 failed projects [1] before going full time on the other two.

[1] https://www.nslookup.io/blog/i-quit-my-job/

Thanks :) They are all generated with Midjourney. This is the prompt I used for one of the images:

A big pile of melting clocks. Vector art, flat illustration, wide stroke, dark background, bright neon colors. --v 5 --ar 2:1

I hope I got it right! :-)

You nailed it! Recursion, propagation, registry, registrar, registrant. Naming in the DNS could — ironically — use some work. But it's too late now, I suppose.