Nonfree.eu 50% offline

Why is the nonfree.eu server so often offline? It seems to me that its nearly about 50% of a day…

It’s typically “offline” during an update of the packages.

Also, it’s a community-driven server/thing, so that also plays a role, I think.

nonfree.eu is a free service pointing to the github page for the repo - if it is not accessible it has something to do with how github handles the request.

 $ drill nonfree.eu
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, rcode: NOERROR, id: 1506
;; flags: qr rd ra ; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 4, AUTHORITY: 3, ADDITIONAL: 5 
;; QUESTION SECTION:
;; nonfree.eu.  IN      A

;; ANSWER SECTION:
nonfree.eu.     1549    IN      A       185.199.111.153
nonfree.eu.     1549    IN      A       185.199.108.153
nonfree.eu.     1549    IN      A       185.199.109.153
nonfree.eu.     1549    IN      A       185.199.110.153
[...]

Seems to be offline again?

$ dig nonfree.eu@1.1.1.1

; <<>> DiG 9.18.27 <<>> nonfree.eu@1.1.1.1
;; global options: +cmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NXDOMAIN, id: 17209
;; flags: qr rd ra ad; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 0, AUTHORITY: 1, ADDITIONAL: 1

;; OPT PSEUDOSECTION:
; EDNS: version: 0, flags:; udp: 1232
;; QUESTION SECTION:
;nonfree.eu\@1.1.1.1.           IN      A

;; AUTHORITY SECTION:
.                       86400   IN      SOA     a.root-servers.net. nstld.verisign-grs.com. 2024060501 1800 900 604800 86400

;; Query time: 250 msec
;; SERVER: 10.1.200.3#53(10.1.200.3) (UDP)
;; WHEN: Thu Jun 06 08:55:54 AWST 2024
;; MSG SIZE  rcvd: 122

You are referring to a DNS service which for some reason is ignoring the authoritative nameserver for nonfree.eu

The authoritative DNS is with joker.com and looks like this

 $ drill nonfree.eu
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, rcode: NOERROR, id: 63275
;; flags: qr rd ra ; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 4, AUTHORITY: 3, ADDITIONAL: 5 
;; QUESTION SECTION:
;; nonfree.eu.  IN      A

;; ANSWER SECTION:
nonfree.eu.     394     IN      A       185.199.109.153
nonfree.eu.     394     IN      A       185.199.111.153
nonfree.eu.     394     IN      A       185.199.108.153
nonfree.eu.     394     IN      A       185.199.110.153

;; AUTHORITY SECTION:
nonfree.eu.     86400   IN      NS      z.ns.joker.com.
nonfree.eu.     86400   IN      NS      y.ns.joker.com.
nonfree.eu.     86400   IN      NS      x.ns.joker.com.

;; ADDITIONAL SECTION:
x.ns.joker.com. 14400   IN      A       194.245.103.13
y.ns.joker.com. 7200    IN      A       23.88.49.189
z.ns.joker.com. 14400   IN      A       192.95.37.184
y.ns.joker.com. 172800  IN      AAAA    2a01:4f8:c0c:165b::1
z.ns.joker.com. 172800  IN      AAAA    2607:5300:203:7e6d::2222

;; Query time: 198 msec
;; SERVER: 127.0.0.53
;; WHEN: Thu Jun  6 06:08:18 2024
;; MSG SIZE  rcvd: 256

This dig command will query a IPv4 for the domain nonfree.eu\@1.1.1.1.. If you want to query the DNS Server 1.1.1.1 you need to add a space between the domain and the @ for the server you want to query.

For exmaple

dig nonfree.eu  @1.1.1.1

welp, that would do it. Although the reason I was digging in the first place was because pamac was failing to resolve it, so.

Seems to be resolved presently.