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Connecting to fastest server

I'm running NextDNS on pfsense via CLI, but for some reason, it never wants to connect to the fastest servers however many times I try.

I've tried rebooting pfsense and restarting the service, but it always connects to annexia-man when others are consistently faster.

https://nextdns.io/diag/fb76b700-7d5b-11ec-a639-ab002b683e5c

Is there a way to force / steer it to connect to others? Or what is the logic that's used to connect to the server it connects to?

13 replies

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    • scpdesign
    • 3 yrs ago
    • Reported - view

    Chris, I have same issue on pfSense as well ("server": "anexia-chi-1"). Very briefly I saw OVH (closer to me in Canada then Australian servers).

    Yes, I'd like to find a way to choose closer servers as well. I tried restarting as you and restarted the resolver but to no avail. Same server.

    • Chris.12
    • 3 yrs ago
    • Reported - view

    My situation isn't as bad as you guys, but it would still be great to be able to connect to the closest / fastest servers.

    It would be good to be able to 'force' or at least have the ability to select server priorities or similar.

    Is anyone from NextDNS available to comment?

    • Turquoise_Sail
    • 3 yrs ago
    • Reported - view

    I noticed this too on my pfsense box (not sure it's related to pfsense). 

    The (really dirty / hacky) way i got round it was create a floating rule to block traffic to the IPs of the anexia-man server, which now sends me over to zept-lon which is consistently lower on latency as well as a few less hops.

    The issue you might run into is private DNS on android wont work, however i got round this by only blocking traffic from the pfsense box (where i run the cli proxy) which allows other devices to contact whatever server they want (which tend to be london anyway!)

      • Chris.12
      • 3 yrs ago
      • Reported - view

      thanks for the tip.

      Lucky enough, it's on a few ms difference, so I'll leave that tweak for now, but I'm keen to understand how or why it's not connecting to 3 consistently faster servers?

      I wish NextDNS could comment or make suggestions?

      • NextDNs
      • 3 yrs ago
      • Reported - view

      Chris we have two modes if steering: anycast and ultralow. Ultralow will often give better results than anycast but can only work with DoH/DoT with no bootstrap IP. Neither can guarantee the PoP with the absolute lowest latency, especially when it’s a few ms appart. Internet is not a fixed/stable network, things are moving constantly.

      Sometime the steering can be very wrong (like going to a different country). In such case we will investigate and try our best to fix it. 

      • Chris.12
      • 3 yrs ago
      • Reported - view

      NextDNS I appreciate the response and thanks for the explanation.

      Although only a few ms difference from me, is there a way I can encourage a connection to one of the *-lon servers, as they're consistently faster for me?

      • NextDNs
      • 3 yrs ago
      • Reported - view

      Chris there is not. 5ms is impossible to even sense a difference, you should not obsess about it.

      • Chris.12
      • 3 yrs ago
      • Reported - view

      NextDNS don't worry, I'm not obsessing, just enquiring how it works and if a faster connection can be utilised, then that would be preferred.

      • K_M_S
      • 3 yrs ago
      • Reported - view

      Chris exactly my thoughts 

    • LazJedi
    • 3 yrs ago
    • Reported - view

    I have the same problem from Turkey. Connecting to Viana instead of connecting to Istanbul server. The latency between the two servers is huge.

    • LazJedi
    • 3 yrs ago
    • Reported - view

    Here is: https://nextdns.io/diag/4a8d38d0-8cae-11ec-af88-c58c6ffaa683

      • NextDNs
      • 3 yrs ago
      • Reported - view

      LazJedi the diag shows you are on ist.  Vienna is only for anycast secondary (you are using ultralow). And 20ms diff is by no mean “huge”.

      • LazJedi
      • 3 yrs ago
      • Reported - view

      NextDNS If I'm still in ist then it's okay. Thanks. :)

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