The Open Root Server Network (ORSN) team decided to shutdown the project by 2008/12/31 00:00 (UTC).
Since start of operation in 2002 ORSN was a political alternative to ICANN/IANA operated root server network. It was also well known for technical innovation by providing IPv6 support before it was introduced in the ICANN/IANA operated root servers.
However during the last months/years the interest of our team shifted and we could no longer fulfil our goal of providing innovation.
Although we realize that at this point in time the discussion about the DNSSEC key possesion should increase the importance of a political alternative, we still couldn't find enough supporters that were willing to help with technical expertise and work to implement this for ORSN.
Our decision was to enable the community to switch to the original root servers and initiate a graceful shutdown period.
To do so, please replace the 'orsn.hint' (or 'root.hint') file on your systems with the original one (ftp://ftp.internic.net/domain/named.root). If possible also check the file validity by comparing it's MD5 hash and/or PGP signature. After that you'll need to restart your nameserver. To verify that you're querying the correct servers you can invoke 'dig @[your nameserver ip goes here] . ns'. If you receive the following output your configuration change was correct:
;; ANSWER SECTION: . 518376 IN NS E.ROOT-SERVERS.NET. . 518376 IN NS F.ROOT-SERVERS.NET. . 518376 IN NS G.ROOT-SERVERS.NET. . 518376 IN NS H.ROOT-SERVERS.NET. . 518376 IN NS I.ROOT-SERVERS.NET. . 518376 IN NS J.ROOT-SERVERS.NET. . 518376 IN NS K.ROOT-SERVERS.NET. . 518376 IN NS L.ROOT-SERVERS.NET. . 518376 IN NS M.ROOT-SERVERS.NET. . 518376 IN NS A.ROOT-SERVERS.NET. . 518376 IN NS B.ROOT-SERVERS.NET. . 518376 IN NS C.ROOT-SERVERS.NET. . 518376 IN NS D.ROOT-SERVERS.NET.
Before the change you'd have received this:
;; ANSWER SECTION: . 173556 IN NS G.ORSN-SERVERS.NET. . 173556 IN NS H.ORSN-SERVERS.NET. . 173556 IN NS I.ORSN-SERVERS.NET. . 173556 IN NS J.ORSN-SERVERS.NET. . 173556 IN NS K.ORSN-SERVERS.NET. . 173556 IN NS L.ORSN-SERVERS.NET. . 173556 IN NS M.ORSN-SERVERS.NET. . 173556 IN NS A.ORSN-SERVERS.NET. . 173556 IN NS B.ORSN-SERVERS.NET. . 173556 IN NS C.ORSN-SERVERS.NET. . 173556 IN NS D.ORSN-SERVERS.NET. . 173556 IN NS E.ORSN-SERVERS.NET. . 173556 IN NS F.ORSN-SERVERS.NET.
We want to thank all of our operators and users for their continuous support.