Engineer's DNS Intelligence Report
The following DNS record TTLs deviate from recommended values. Incorrect TTLs can cause caching issues, slow propagation, or unnecessary DNS traffic.
| Record Type | Observed TTL | Typical TTL | Severity | Context |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| AAAA | 256s |
1 hour (3600s) |
high | AAAA TTL is below typical — observed 256s, typical value is 1 hour (3600s). Short TTLs increase DNS query volume but enable faster propagation. If you are preparing for a migration or need rapid failover, this may be intentional (RFC 1035 §3.2.1). For steady-state production, consider 3600 seconds per NIST SP 800-53 SI-7 relevance guidance. Use the TTL Tuner for profile-specific recommendations. |
| A | 226s |
1 hour (3600s) |
high | A TTL is below typical — observed 226s, typical value is 1 hour (3600s). Short TTLs increase DNS query volume but enable faster propagation. If you are preparing for a migration or need rapid failover, this may be intentional (RFC 1035 §3.2.1). For steady-state production, consider 3600 seconds per NIST SP 800-53 SI-7 relevance guidance. Use the TTL Tuner for profile-specific recommendations. |
| SOA | 1414s |
1 hour (3600s) |
medium |
SOA TTL is below typical — observed 1414s, typical value is 1 hour (3600s). Short TTLs increase DNS query volume but enable faster propagation. If you are preparing for a migration or need rapid failover, this may be intentional (RFC 1035 §3.2.1). For steady-state production, consider 3600 seconds per NIST SP 800-53 SI-7 relevance guidance. Use the TTL Tuner for profile-specific recommendations.
Provider Note: Cloudflare manages SOA timers automatically. Free/Pro/Business plans cannot modify SOA values. Observed TTL (1414s) is set by Cloudflare, not the zone administrator. See RFC 1912 §2.2 for recommended SOA timer values.
|
| TXT | 226s |
1 hour (3600s) |
high | TXT TTL is below typical — observed 226s, typical value is 1 hour (3600s). Short TTLs increase DNS query volume but enable faster propagation. If you are preparing for a migration or need rapid failover, this may be intentional (RFC 1035 §3.2.1). For steady-state production, consider 3600 seconds per NIST SP 800-53 SI-7 relevance guidance. Use the TTL Tuner for profile-specific recommendations. |
| MX | 24s |
1 hour (3600s) |
high | MX TTL is below typical — observed 24s, typical value is 1 hour (3600s). Short TTLs increase DNS query volume but enable faster propagation. If you are preparing for a migration or need rapid failover, this may be intentional (RFC 1035 §3.2.1). For steady-state production, consider 3600 seconds per NIST SP 800-53 SI-7 relevance guidance. Use the TTL Tuner for profile-specific recommendations. |
| NS | 21232s |
1 day (86400s) |
medium | NS TTL is below typical — observed 21232s, typical value is 1 day (86400s). Short TTLs increase DNS query volume but enable faster propagation. If you are preparing for a migration or need rapid failover, this may be intentional (RFC 1035 §3.2.1). For steady-state production, consider 86400 seconds per NIST SP 800-53 SI-7 relevance guidance. Use the TTL Tuner for profile-specific recommendations. |
Big Picture Questions
- How often do you actually change this record? If it hasn’t changed in months, a short TTL is generating unnecessary DNS queries without any benefit.
- Are you preparing for a migration or IP change? Short TTLs make sense temporarily — but should be raised back to 1 hour (3600s) once the change is complete.
- Every DNS lookup adds 20–150ms of latency. With a 60s TTL, returning visitors trigger a fresh lookup every minute. With 3600s, they get cached responses for an hour — faster page loads, no extra infrastructure needed.
- Google runs A records at ~30s because they operate a global anycast network and need to steer traffic dynamically. For a typical website without that infrastructure, copying those TTLs increases query volume with zero upside.
jill.ns.cloudflare.com
2402830096
dns.cloudflare.com
| Timer | Value | RFC 1912 Range |
|---|---|---|
| Refresh | 10000s | 1,200–43,200s (20 min – 12 hrs) |
| Retry | 2400s | Fraction of Refresh |
| Expire | 604800s | 1,209,600–2,419,200s (14–28 days) |
| Minimum (Neg. Cache) | 1800s | 300–86,400s (5 min – 1 day) |
Independent RFC compliance assessment for Cloudflare. Each finding cites the specific RFC section and reports what the engineering community consensus is. We report honestly — if a provider deviates from standards, we explain what they did differently and what the RFCs actually say.
Cloudflare sets SOA Expire to 604,800 seconds (7 days). RFC 1912 §2.2 recommends 1,209,600–2,419,200 seconds (14–28 days). This means secondary nameservers stop serving the zone sooner if the primary becomes unreachable. Cloudflare's position is that their anycast architecture makes traditional zone transfer semantics less relevant. SOA timers are not editable on Free, Pro, or Business plans.
Cloudflare overrides the zone administrator's TTL to 300 seconds for all proxied (orange-cloud) records. RFC 2181 §5.2 requires TTL uniformity within an RRset but does not mandate a specific value. As the authoritative server, Cloudflare is technically within its rights, but the administrator loses TTL control. This can affect ACME DNS-01 challenges and automation workflows that depend on rapid propagation.
RFC 1912 recommends YYYYMMDDNN format for SOA serial numbers (e.g., 2026022501). Cloudflare uses a proprietary serial number format that does not encode the date. RFC 1035 only requires the serial to increment on changes, so this is compliant with the mandatory standard but breaks the convention relied on by monitoring tools.
Cloudflare's SOA MINIMUM (negative cache TTL) is 1,800–3,600 seconds (30–60 minutes). This controls how long resolvers cache NXDOMAIN responses. Newly created DNS records — including ACME DNS-01 challenge TXT records for Let's Encrypt — may be invisible for up to 1 hour even after creation. This causes certificate issuance failures for automation tools like cert-manager and Traefik. Workaround: pre-create placeholder records before they're needed. This is RFC-compliant but aggressive compared to the 300–900 seconds common at other providers.
In February 2022, Cloudflare's resolver (1.1.1.1) returned CNAME responses with mismatched TTLs within the same RRset — including cases where one TTL was zero and another was non-zero. RFC 2181 §5.2 explicitly states: 'the TTLs of all RRs in an RRSet must be the same.' systemd-resolved (used by Arch Linux, Ubuntu, Fedora, and most modern Linux distributions) correctly rejected these responses per the RFC, causing widespread DNS resolution failures. Cloudflare acknowledged the issue and it appears to have been fixed, but it demonstrated that Cloudflare's DNS infrastructure can deviate from RFC requirements in ways that break compliant resolver implementations.
Your DMARC policy is monitor-only (p=none). Upgrade to p=quarantine or p=reject after reviewing reports to actively prevent spoofing.
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Type | TXT |
| Host | _dmarc.ietf.org (DMARC policy record) |
| Value | v=DMARC1; p=quarantine; rua=mailto:dmarc-reports@ietf.org |
CAA records specify which Certificate Authorities may issue certificates for your domain, reducing the risk of unauthorized certificate issuance.
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Type | CAA |
| Host | ietf.org (root of domain — adjust CA to match your provider) |
| Value | 0 issue "letsencrypt.org" |
Your domain has DNSSEC + DANE — the strongest email transport security available. TLS-RPT (TLS Reporting) sends you reports about TLS connection failures when other servers try to deliver mail to your domain.
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Type | TXT |
| Host | _smtp._tls.ietf.org (SMTP TLS reporting record) |
| Value | v=TLSRPTv1; rua=mailto:tls-reports@ietf.org |
MTA-STS enforces TLS encryption for inbound mail delivery, preventing downgrade attacks on your mail transport.
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Type | TXT |
| Host | _mta-sts.ietf.org (MTA-STS policy record) |
| Value | v=STSv1; id=ietf.org |
Email Security Methodology Can this domain be impersonated by email? Yes DMARC is monitor-only (p=none)
SPF Record RFC 7208 §4 Consistent
SPF valid with industry-standard soft fail (~all), 2/10 lookups
DMARC Policy RFC 7489 §6.3 Consistent
DMARC in monitoring mode (p=none) - spoofed mail still delivered, no enforcement
pct= with t= (testing flag), add np= (non-existent subdomain policy), and mandate DNS tree walk for policy discovery instead of the Public Suffix List.DKIM Records RFC 6376 §3.6 Consistent
DKIM not discoverable via common selectors (large providers use rotating selectors)
l= tag body length vulnerability (attacker appends unsigned content to signed mail),
weak key exploitation (keys below 1024-bit are cryptographically breakable per RFC 6376 §3.3.3),
DKIM replay attacks (re-sending legitimately signed messages at scale)
MTA-STS RFC 8461 §3 Consistent
No MTA-STS record found
MTA-STS policy enforcement is evaluated in Mail Transport Security below.
TLS-RPT RFC 8460 §3 Consistent
No TLS-RPT record found
DMARC External Reporting Authorization RFC 7489 §7.1
All 1 external reporting domains properly authorized
| External Domain | Authorization | Auth Record |
|---|---|---|
vali.email |
Authorized |
v=DMARC1;
|
DANE / TLSA Consistent Recon Methodology Can mail servers establish identity without a public CA? Yes
DANE configured — TLSA records found for all 1 MX host
| MX Host | Usage | Selector | Match | Certificate Data |
|---|---|---|---|---|
mail2.ietf.org |
3 DANE-EE (Domain-issued certificate) | Public key only (SubjectPublicKeyInfo) | SHA-256 | 810e86ff280553ec895b7f35132a3e919f9aa0517b181645492cd56c8bc2e67a |
Two mechanisms protect email in transit. DANE is the primary standard; MTA-STS is the alternative for domains that cannot deploy DNSSEC:
- DNSSEC + DANE (RFC 7672) — Cryptographic chain of trust from DNS root to mail server certificate. Eliminates reliance on certificate authorities. No trust-on-first-use weakness. Requires DNSSEC.
- MTA-STS (RFC 8461) — HTTPS-based policy requiring TLS for mail delivery. Works without DNSSEC but relies on CA trust and is vulnerable on first use (§10). Created for domains where “deploying DNSSEC is undesirable or impractical” (§2).
Industry trend: Microsoft Exchange Online enforces inbound DANE with DNSSEC (GA October 2024), and providers like Proton Mail and Fastmail also support DANE. Google Workspace does not support DANE and relies on MTA-STS. Both mechanisms coexist because DANE is backward-compatible — senders skip the check if the domain isn't DNSSEC-signed (RFC 7672 §1.3).
Brand Security Can this brand be convincingly faked? Likely DMARC is monitor-only p=none (RFC 7489 §6.3) — spoofed mail is not blocked, brand faking is trivial
BIMI BIMI Spec Consistent Success No VMC SVG
BIMI configured - logo validated (VMC recommended for Gmail)
CAA RFC 8659 §4 Consistent Warning
No CAA records found - any CA can issue certificates
Vulnerability Disclosure Policy (security.txt) Is there a verified way to report security issues? No RFC 9116
No security.txt found
/.well-known/security.txt provides security researchers with a standardized way to report vulnerabilities.
See securitytxt.org for a generator.
AI Surface Scanner Beta Is this domain discoverable by AI — and protected from abuse? No
No AI governance measures detected
llms.txt llmstxt.org
AI Crawler Governance (robots.txt) RFC 9309 IETF Draft
Content-Usage Directive IETF Draft
Content-Usage: directive for robots.txt that lets site owners declare whether their content may be used for AI training and inference. This is an active draft, not yet a ratified standard.
Content-Usage: ai=no to robots.txt to deny AI training, or Content-Usage: ai=allow to explicitly permit it.
Without this directive, AI crawler behavior depends on individual crawler policies and User-agent rules.
AI Recommendation Poisoning
Hidden Prompt Artifacts
Evidence Log (1 item)
| Type | Detail | Severity | Confidence |
|---|---|---|---|
robots_txt_no_ai_blocks |
robots.txt found but no AI-specific blocking directives | low | Observed |
Public Exposure Checks Are sensitive files or secrets exposed? No
No exposed secrets detected in public page source — same-origin, non-intrusive scan of publicly visible page source and scripts.
What type of scan is this?
This is OSINT (Open Source Intelligence) collection — we check the same publicly accessible URLs that any web browser could visit. No authentication is bypassed, no ports are probed, no vulnerabilities are exploited.
Is this a PCI compliance scan? No. PCI DSS requires scans performed by an Approved Scanning Vendor (ASV) certified by the PCI Security Standards Council. DNS Tool is not an ASV. If you need PCI compliance scanning, engage a certified ASV such as Qualys, Tenable, or Trustwave.
Is this a penetration test? No. Penetration testing involves active exploitation attempts against systems with authorization. Our checks are passive observation of publicly accessible resources — the same methodology used by Shodan, Mozilla Observatory, and other OSINT platforms.
DNS Server Security Hardened
No DNS server misconfigurations found on jill.ns.cloudflare.com — Nmap NSE probes for zone transfer (AXFR), open recursion (RFC 5358), nameserver identity disclosure, and DNS cache snooping.
| Check | Result | Detail |
|---|---|---|
| Zone Transfer (AXFR) | Denied | Test inconclusive |
| Open Recursion | Disabled | Test inconclusive |
| Nameserver Identity | Hidden | Test inconclusive |
| Cache Snooping | Protected | Test inconclusive |
Tested nameservers: jill.ns.cloudflare.com, ken.ns.cloudflare.com
Delegation Consistency 1 Issue
Delegation consistency: 1 issue(s) found — Parent/child NS delegation alignment: DS↔DNSKEY, glue records, TTL drift, SOA serial sync.
- Could not retrieve NS TTL from parent zone
DS ↔ DNSKEY Alignment Aligned
| DS Key Tag | DS Algorithm | DNSKEY Key Tag | DNSKEY Algorithm |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2371 | 13 | 2371 | 13 |
Glue Record Completeness Complete
| Nameserver | In-Bailiwick | IPv4 Glue | IPv6 Glue | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
jill.ns.cloudflare.com |
No | N/A | N/A | OK |
ken.ns.cloudflare.com |
No | N/A | N/A | OK |
NS TTL Comparison Drift
SOA Serial Consistency Consistent
jill.ns.cloudflare.com: 2.402830096e+09ken.ns.cloudflare.com: 2.402830096e+09Nameserver Fleet Matrix Healthy
Analyzed 2 nameserver(s) for ietf.org — Per-nameserver reachability, ASN diversity, SOA serial sync, and lame delegation checks.
| Nameserver | IPv4 | IPv6 | ASN / Operator | UDP | TCP | AA | SOA Serial |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
ken.ns.cloudflare.com |
173.245.59.127 108.162.193.127 172.64.33.127 |
2803:f800:50::6ca2:c17f 2606:4700:58::adf5:3b7f 2a06:98c1:50::ac40:217f |
AS13335
Cloudflare, Inc. |
2402830096 | |||
jill.ns.cloudflare.com |
172.64.32.122 108.162.192.122 173.245.58.122 |
2803:f800:50::6ca2:c07a 2a06:98c1:50::ac40:207a 2606:4700:50::adf5:3a7a |
AS13335
Cloudflare, Inc. |
2402830096 |
1 ASN(s), 6 /24 prefix(es) — consider adding diversity
DNSSEC Operations Deep Dive 1 Issue
DNSSEC operational notes: 1 item(s) to review — KSK/ZSK differentiation, RRSIG expiry windows, NSEC/NSEC3 analysis, and rollover readiness.
- CDS/CDNSKEY automation present but only single KSK — pre-publish second KSK before rollover
DNSKEY Inventory 2 Keys
| Role | Key Tag | Algorithm | Key Size |
|---|---|---|---|
| ZSK | 34505 | ECDSA P-256/SHA-256 | 256 bits |
| KSK | 2371 | ECDSA P-256/SHA-256 | 256 bits |
RRSIG Signatures 0 Signatures
No RRSIG records found.
Denial of Existence NSEC
NSEC records expose zone contents via ordered names (zone walking). Consider NSEC3 for zone enumeration protection.
Rollover Readiness Partial
Mail Transport Security Beta Is mail transport encrypted and verified? Yes DANE/TLSA provides cryptographic transport verification
0/1 servers support STARTTLS (direct probe)
Policy Assessment Primary
- DANE/TLSA records published — mail servers pin TLS certificates via DNSSEC (RFC 7672)
Telemetry
Live Probe Supplementary
| MX Host | STARTTLS | TLS Version | Cipher | Certificate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
mail2.ietf.org |
N/A | N/A |
Invalid
STARTTLS not supported |
Infrastructure Intelligence Who hosts this domain and what services power it? Direct
ASN / Network Success
Resolved 1 unique ASN(s) across 4 IP address(es)
| ASN | Name | Country |
|---|---|---|
AS13335 |
Cloudflare, Inc. | US |
104.16.44.99 → AS13335 (104.16.32.0/20)104.16.45.99 → AS13335 (104.16.32.0/20)2606:4700::6810:2c63 → AS13335 (2606:4700::/44)2606:4700::6810:2d63 → AS13335 (2606:4700::/44)Edge / CDN Success
Domain appears to use direct origin hosting
SaaS TXT Footprint