I setup a local name server (BIND on OS-X) and was pleased that 'dig' response times were very short (2nd query onwards). However, if I wait a short period (5s) the response time goes up again - the request is once more being forwarded to the remote server (OpenDNS). I guess the TTL is short but I don't see a TTL value in the dig response. Where can it be found? Is it likely to be short for most web servers and does this negate any advantage from having a local server?
My DSL modem (from Huawei) must be ignoring the TTL as its responses (using dig @192.168.1.1 etc) are a few ms even after waiting many minutes bewteen requests, against several hundred ms when my local server has to forward the request. Is this common with such modems or just chinese ones? My initial interest in using a local server was a desire for faster browsing and a suspicion of chinese products. Am I paranoid in the latter?
Update
The questions were based on the false premise that the TTL was very short. Now that I know where the TTL is shown in the dig output, I can see that it is not short enough to be the cause of the local server re-requesting the upstream server. Any ideas on the cause of this would be welcome. Also it is evident that the modem is not ignoring the TTL. I still don't trust it though...