Re: [Sks-devel] 2 out of 10 pool.sks-keyservers.net not responding to pings

[David Shaw]

On Nov 29, 2010, at 3:55 PM, Daniel Kahn Gillmor wrote:

> From where i sit, 2 out of 10 of the servers returned by
> pool.sks-keyservers.net are not responding to ICMP echo requests (pings):
> 
> 193.174.13.74  (pgpkeys.pca.dfn.de)
> 94.46.216.2    (sks.5coluna.com)
> 
> Given that the machines do respond to http requests, i wonder why they
> don't respond to ICMP echo requests.  enabling ICMP echo responses on
> these hosts would make for much simpler network diagnostics.
> 
> Is there a general consensus that keyservers in the well-connected pool
> should (or should not) provide ICMP echo responses?

Many sites block ping wholesale.  Rather than ping, why not use a GET or HEAD 
request to see if a server is up or not?  It's heavier-weight than a ping, to 
be sure, but since the thing being tested for is whether the keyserver is up or 
not, a HTTP request will give you a much more useful answer than ping which can 
only tell you if the box is powered on and has an IP address.

David