When DNS Blinks: Scaling and Hardening CoreDNS in Critical Cloud Infra... Yong Tang & John Belamaric

This talk covers the evolution of CoreDNS in response to recent disruptions in DNS services at major cloud providers, emphasizing its importance as a foundational dependency for modern internet and Kubernetes platforms. The speakers, Yong Tang from Ivanti and John Belamaric from Google, introduce new CoreDNS plugins designed to enhance multi-core scalability and alleviate contention during high query loads. They share insights from operating CoreDNS under stress, including tuning practices and deployment patterns that limit failure impact. The session also addresses the security risks associated with DNS at scale, reviews vulnerabilities in CoreDNS, and discusses hardening strategies and the future roadmap for CoreDNS.