History of ROOT-SERVERS

History of ROOT-SERVERS - A Journey from 4 nodes to 13 nodes at present. Based on the excerpt from “History of Root DNS Servers” by RSSAC.

1.1 Period 1983-1986

Before the development of DNS, information about hosts were assigned in a flat namespace format and name-to-address look ups was done using table, which use to be available in all the hosts. Network Information Centre (NIC) at SRI International, use to maintain this table and all hosts get the updated copy from SRI-NIC periodically. At that time, most of the hosts were at ARPANET (Advanced Research Project Agency Network) and DND (Defense Data Network), and managing the hosts records in flat file wasn’t that tough.
As the number of hosts were increasing so was the size of this flat file, and with the frequency of updates, a decentralized database need was felt. To address this problem, Mr. Jon Postel and Mr. Paul Mockapetris published number of RFCs that laid down the design of DNS.

To test the DNS, Mr. Jon Postel and Mr. Paul Mockapetris setup the first root server in 1984 at Information Science Institute (ISI) at the University of South California (USC). The domain name services were running of the software developed by Mockapetris, named JEEVES. In 1985 an additional root was added at ISI.
An additional root server was placed at SRI International, as it was NIC for DDN and was handling the registration of hosts and maintenance of hosts.txt file.

Doug Kingston and Mike Muuss, at the Ballistic Research Laboratory (BRL) in the U.S. Army, played an important role in the ongoing development of the Berkeley Internet Name Domain (BIND) package. To assist in the further development of the DNS and to provide a root server for MILNET (which was split from the original ARPANET in 1983, is the operational, unclassified network component of the Department of Defense Network) in the event that MILNET had to be disconnected from the ARPANET, BRL volunteered in 1985 to host a root server, making it the first root server running BIND on a UNIX operating system.

Thus by 1985, there were four root name servers –

List of Root Servers in 1985

Name	Software	Organisation
SRI-NIC	JEEVES	SRI-International
ISIB	JEEVES	Information Science Institute, USC
ISIC	JEEVES	Information Science Institute, USC
BRL-AOS	BIND	Ballistic Research Laboratory, U.S. Army

By March 1987, SRI-NIC was named SRI-NIC.ARPA, ISIC was named C.ISI.EDU, BRL-AOS was named BRL-AOS.ARPA, and ISIA (previously ISIB) was named A.ISI.EDU.

1.2 Period 1986-1990

In October 1986, at the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) 6 meeting, Doug Kingston from BRL convened a workshop called “Name Domains for MILNET.” The primary focus was to explore the transition of MILNET to use domain names.
During the workshop and also in mailing list discussions afterwards, Gunter Air Force Station was mentioned as a possible root server location because of its ability to serve MILNET. Eventually, in November 1987 GUNTER-ADAM (U.S. Air Force Networking Group) was added as a root server.

In 1986, the National Science Foundation Network (NSFNET) went online. Built as a "network of networks" and developed in phases, NSFNET connected supercomputer centers in the U.S. and a variety of regional research and education networks, extending the Internet’s reach throughout the United States.
As NSFNet traffic and registrations grew, people became aware of some cases of poor DNS service due to the limited number and reach of root servers. To address this issue, in July 1987, at the IETF 7 meeting, the name domain planning working group held a one-hour session to discuss root servers. The goal of the meeting was to select root servers that would provide improved service to the NSFNET. The participants discussed and chose three new name servers –

• University of Maryland, largely because it was in a position to service equally well the NSFNET, ARPANET, MILNET and SURANET.

• NASA Ames, because it was an ideal location due to its connection to MILNET, ARPANET, NASA-SCINET19, NSFNET and BARRNET.

• Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI), which was part of the New York State Education and Research Network. It was also one of the first Internet service providers in the United States.

These three root servers and GUNTER-ADAM were expected to be operational by IETF 8 in November 1987. In November 1987, C.ISI.EDU was retired from root server duty. As agreed, four additional root servers were added.

List of Root Servers in November 1987

Name	Software	Organisation
SRI-NIC.ARPA	JEEVES	SRI International
A.ISI.EDU	JEEVES	Information Science Institute, USC
C.NYSER.NET	BIND	Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
TERP.UMD.NET	BIND	University of Maryland
GUNTER-ADAM.ARPA	JEEVES	U.S. Air Force Networking Group
NS.NASA.GOV	BIND	NASA Ames
BRL-AOS.ARPA	BIND	Ballistic Research Laboratory, U.S. Army

In November 1988, DDN implemented phase two of the MILNET Domain Name Implementation with DDN MGT Bulletin 42. As a result, SRI-NIC.ARPA was renamed to NIC.DDN.MIL, BRL-AOS.ARPA was renamed to AOS.BRL.MIL, and GUNTERADAM.ARPA was renamed to GUNTER-ADAM.AF.MIL.

Thus, by November 1990, there were seven root servers –

List of Root Servers in November 1990

Original Name	New Name	Organisation
SRI-NIC.ARPA	NS.NIC.DDN.MIL	SRI International
A.ISI.EDU	A.ISI.EDU	Information Science Institute, USC
C.NYSER.NET	C.NYSER.NET	Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
TERP.UMD.NET	TERP.UMD.NET	University of Maryland
GUNTER-ADAM.ARPA	GUNTER-ADAM.AF.MIL	U.S. Air Force Networking Group
NS.NASA.GOV	NS.NASA.GOV	NASA Ames
BRL-AOS.ARPA	AOS.BRL.MIL	Ballistic Research Laboratory, U.S. Army