CIRA (Canadian Internet Registration Authority) has recently launched a new DNS service called the “Canadian Shield” which is basically a DNS service similar to OpenDNS or Cloudflares 1.1.1.1 for Canadians, by Canadians.
CIRA offers three levels of protection depending on how safe you want to be:
- Private: DNS resolution service that keeps your DNS data private from third-parties.
- Protected: Includes Private features and adds malware and phishing blocking.
- Family: Includes Protected and Private features and blocks pornographic content.
We use the Enterprise version of this service at my place of work and based on how we use it I’d say we’re using the equivalent of their “Protected” offering. We’ve had zero issues with the service and defiantly feels like it adds an extra layer or protection to our users.
Alright, enough free advertising (I am not receiving compensation from CIRA for this post).
When this was first announced I was eager to try it at home. CIRA’s instructions are how to either configure DNS over HTTPS (DoH) on a per-browser basis (not ideal for me since I have many devices on my network and don’t only use Firefox/Chrome) or configure your outbound DNS to use their servers over traditional, un-encrypted, DNS queries.
What I really want is to configure my Pi-hole which is my DNS endpoint for anything on my network to use the new CIRA service. This would capture ALL outbound DNS traffic and send it to CIRA making it so I only have to configure things in one place.
My current setup is: Clients -> 1 of 2 Active Directory DNS Servers -> Pi-hole -> Cloudflare via DoH (1.1.1.1 / Cloudfared)
This will easily work on a more traditional deployment of: Clients -> Pi-hole -> Cloudflare via DoH (1.1.1.1 / Cloudfared)
My Pi-hole is a basic CentOS 8 VM with the Pi-hole software installed on it with cloudflared so I can take advantage of DoH for all of my outbound DNS traffic. This is the minimum you need to get this working, a functional Pi-hole that is already sending it’s outbound DNS queries to Cloudflare (or another DoH provider) via cloudflared.
The first thing I did was re-configure my cloudflared to simply try using the CIRA DoH:
# Edit the cloudflared configuration file vim /etc/default/cloudflared # Commandline args for cloudflared to use 1.1.1.1 CLOUDFLARED_OPTS=--port 5053 --upstream https://1.1.1.1/dns-query --upstream https://1.0.0.1/dns-query # Changed the above to: CLOUDFLARED_OPTS=--port 5053 --upstream https://private.canadianshield.cira.ca/dns-query # Save and close the file # Restart cloudflared systemctl restart cloudflared # Test DNS nslookup google.ca # This failed
This ended up not working and after I tried it I realized why. To be able to use private.canadianshield.cira.ca you have to have functioning DNS. Cloudflare has skirted this issue by using 1.1.1.1 and 1.0.0.1 for it’s service, they are IPs and do not need DNS to be working to function.
Fortunately the solution was very easy:
# I did a nslookup on the specific CIRA service I wanted to use (Private) via traditional DNS nslookup private.canadianshield.cira.ca 1.1.1.1 Server: 192.168.0.4 Address: 192.168.0.4#53 Non-authoritative answer: Name: private.canadianshield.cira.ca Address: 149.112.121.10 Name: private.canadianshield.cira.ca Address: 149.112.122.10 Name: private.canadianshield.cira.ca Address: 2620:10a:80bb::10 Name: private.canadianshield.cira.ca Address: 2620:10a:80bc::10 # If you want to use Protected or Family instead of private # do a nslookup on either protected.canadianshield.cira.ca # or family.canadianshield.cira.ca instead and use those IPs # I then edited my /etc/hosts file on my Pi-hole vim /etc/hosts # and added the following (I don't use IPv6 at this time): # CloudA DNS 149.112.121.10 private.canadianshield.cira.ca 149.112.122.10 private.canadianshield.cira.ca # Save and close the file # Test DNS nslookup cira.ca Server: 192.168.0.4 Address: 192.168.0.4#53 Non-authoritative answer: Name: cira.ca Address: 52.60.203.65
That’s it. I now have the CIRA Canadian Shield working on my Pi-hole using the cloudflared software.
Now for some DNS benchmarks, what’s faster? CIRA or 1.1.1.1?
I flushed the DNS cache on my Active Directory DNS servers and then restarted cloudflared on my Pi-hole before running these benchmarks:
1.1.1.1.1 / 1.0.0.1 192.168. 0. 4 | Min | Avg | Max |Std.Dev|Reliab%| ----------------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+ + Cached Name | 0.000 | 0.000 | 0.000 | 0.000 | 100.0 | + Uncached Name | 0.009 | 0.052 | 0.196 | 0.043 | 100.0 | + DotCom Lookup | 0.009 | 0.013 | 0.027 | 0.004 | 100.0 | ---<-------->---+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+ CAYENNE.nom.fizi.ca Local Network Nameserver 192.168. 0. 5 | Min | Avg | Max |Std.Dev|Reliab%| ----------------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+ + Cached Name | 0.000 | 0.000 | 0.000 | 0.000 | 100.0 | + Uncached Name | 0.009 | 0.051 | 0.195 | 0.044 | 100.0 | + DotCom Lookup | 0.010 | 0.014 | 0.028 | 0.003 | 100.0 | ---<-------->---+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+ HORSERADISH.nom.fizi.ca Local Network Nameserver
and here are the three CIRA services:
CIRA - Private 192.168. 0. 4 | Min | Avg | Max |Std.Dev|Reliab%| ----------------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+ + Cached Name | 0.000 | 0.000 | 0.000 | 0.000 | 100.0 | + Uncached Name | 0.019 | 0.062 | 0.236 | 0.048 | 100.0 | + DotCom Lookup | 0.022 | 0.046 | 0.086 | 0.020 | 100.0 | ---<-------->---+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+ CAYENNE.nom.fizi.ca Local Network Nameserver 192.168. 0. 5 | Min | Avg | Max |Std.Dev|Reliab%| ----------------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+ + Cached Name | 0.000 | 0.000 | 0.000 | 0.000 | 100.0 | + Uncached Name | 0.014 | 0.068 | 0.238 | 0.056 | 100.0 | + DotCom Lookup | 0.023 | 0.047 | 0.075 | 0.019 | 100.0 | ---<-------->---+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+ HORSERADISH.nom.fizi.ca Local Network Nameserver CIRA - Protected 192.168. 0. 4 | Min | Avg | Max |Std.Dev|Reliab%| ----------------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+ + Cached Name | 0.000 | 0.000 | 0.000 | 0.000 | 100.0 | + Uncached Name | 0.019 | 0.062 | 0.236 | 0.048 | 100.0 | + DotCom Lookup | 0.022 | 0.046 | 0.086 | 0.020 | 100.0 | ---<-------->---+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+ CAYENNE.nom.fizi.ca Local Network Nameserver 192.168. 0. 5 | Min | Avg | Max |Std.Dev|Reliab%| ----------------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+ + Cached Name | 0.000 | 0.000 | 0.000 | 0.000 | 100.0 | + Uncached Name | 0.014 | 0.068 | 0.238 | 0.056 | 100.0 | + DotCom Lookup | 0.023 | 0.047 | 0.075 | 0.019 | 100.0 | ---<-------->---+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+ HORSERADISH.nom.fizi.ca Local Network Nameserver CIRA - Family 192.168. 0. 4 | Min | Avg | Max |Std.Dev|Reliab%| ----------------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+ + Cached Name | 0.000 | 0.000 | 0.000 | 0.000 | 100.0 | + Uncached Name | 0.014 | 0.064 | 0.246 | 0.053 | 100.0 | + DotCom Lookup | 0.022 | 0.039 | 0.080 | 0.018 | 100.0 | ---<-------->---+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+ CAYENNE.nom.fizi.ca Local Network Nameserver 192.168. 0. 5 | Min | Avg | Max |Std.Dev|Reliab%| ----------------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+ + Cached Name | 0.000 | 0.000 | 0.000 | 0.000 | 100.0 | + Uncached Name | 0.014 | 0.073 | 0.248 | 0.062 | 100.0 | + DotCom Lookup | 0.024 | 0.049 | 0.082 | 0.020 | 100.0 | ---<-------->---+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+ HORSERADISH.nom.fizi.ca Local Network Nameserver
If I am interpreting this data correctly, CIRA is 0.010s-0.030s slower on average compared to 1.1.1.1. Hardly worth mentioning.
I’m happily switching over to a Canadian based DoH service (full disclosure, I’m Canadian). No offence Cloudflare, you still get to hold my DNS until CIRA starts offering their DNS Anycast Service for home users (hint hint).
Oh and just in case your curious, if you choose their ‘Family’ service and try and hit up Pornhub, you’re greeted with this: