How to hop around after Google

THE RECENT hours long Google outage taught me - and plenty of others - a lesson. Google has become so handy that it isn't such a bad idea to keep a post-it note around with some common IP addresses, in case of DNS failure.

So here's a shortlist I have compiled of Google's most important servers, to keep handy in case of DNS outages.

Bear in mind that this list is by no means definitive, as due to the nature of the Net even the big Net honchos like Google often shuffle servers within its IP blocks. But in any case, it's a good idea to check regularly and update this post-it note with IP addresses.

Here's the one I was able to compile today from my U.S. linux shell account:

For www.google.com

$ host www.google.com
www.google.com is an alias for www.l.google.com.
www.l.google.com has address 66.102.7.104
www.l.google.com has address 66.102.7.147
www.l.google.com has address 66.102.7.99

For mail.google.com

$ host mail.google.com
mail.google.com is an alias for googlemail.l.google.com.
googlemail.l.google.com has address 216.239.53.83
googlemail.l.google.com has address 216.239.53.18
googlemail.l.google.com has address 216.239.53.19

And in case DNS servers go belly-up, you can always reach the INQ by its IP address, which at time of this writing is: 67.19.9.2. We hope this helps. µ

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