numa/docs/marketing/launch-drafts.md

Launch Drafts

Lessons Learned

r/selfhosted (0 upvotes, hostile) — "replaces Pi-hole" framing triggered defensive comparisons. Audience protects their stack.

r/programare (26 upvotes, 22 comments, 12K views, 90.6% ratio) — worked because it led with technical achievement. But: "what does this offer over /etc/hosts?" and "mature solutions exist (dnsmasq, nginx)" were the top objections. Tool-replacement angle falls flat with generalist audiences.

r/webdev — removed by moderators (self-promotion rules).

Key takeaways:

• Lead with what's unique, not what it replaces
• Write like explaining to a colleague, not marketing copy
• Pick ONE hook per community — don't try to be everything
• Triple-check the GitHub link works before posting
• Authentic tone > polished bullets
• Agree with "just use X" — then show what X can't do
• Don't oversell the pkarr/token vision — one sentence max
• Benchmark request from r/programare (Mydocalm) — warm follow-up content

---

Launch Order

0. r/programare — done (2026-03-21). 12K views, 26 upvotes, 22 comments. 1. r/webdev — removed by moderators.

2. r/degoogle — done 3. r/node — done

4. r/coolgithubprojects — zero friction, just post the repo 5. r/sideproject — done (2026-03-29)
5. r/dns — technical DNS audience, recursive + DNSSEC angle
6. Show HN — Tuesday-Thursday, 9-10 AM ET
7. r/rust — same day as HN, technical deep-dive
8. r/commandline — 24h after HN
9. r/selfhosted — only if HN hits front page, lead with recursive + LAN discovery
10. r/programare follow-up — benchmark post + recursive/DNSSEC update

---

Community Drafts

Show HN

Title (72 chars): Show HN: I built a DNS resolver from scratch in Rust – no DNS libraries

Body:

I wanted to understand how DNS actually works at the wire level, so I built a resolver from scratch. No dns libraries — the RFC 1035 protocol (headers, labels, compression pointers, record types) is all hand-parsed. It started as a learning project and turned into something I use daily as my system DNS.

What it does today:

• Forward mode by default — transparent proxy to your existing DNS with caching and ad blocking. Changes nothing about your network.
• Full recursive resolver — set mode = "recursive" and it resolves from root nameservers. No upstream dependency. CNAME chasing, TLD priming, SRTT.
• DNSSEC validation — chain-of-trust verification from root KSK. RSA/SHA-256, ECDSA P-256, Ed25519. Sets the AD bit on verified responses.
• Ad blocking — ~385K+ domains via Hagezi Pro, works on any network
• DNS-over-HTTPS — encrypted upstream (Quad9, Cloudflare, or any provider) as an alternative to recursive mode
• .numa local domains — register frontend.numa → localhost:5173 and it creates both the DNS record and an HTTP/HTTPS reverse proxy with auto-generated TLS certs. WebSocket passthrough works (Vite HMR).
• LAN service discovery — run Numa on two machines, they find each other via UDP multicast. Zero config.
• Developer overrides — point any hostname to any IP, auto-reverts after N minutes. REST API for scripting.

Single binary, macOS + Linux. sudo numa install and it's your system DNS — forward mode by default, recursive when you're ready.

The interesting technical bits: the recursive resolver walks root → TLD → authoritative with iterative queries, caching NS/DS/DNSKEY records at each hop. DNSSEC validation verifies RRSIG signatures against DNSKEY, walks the chain via DS records up to the hardcoded root trust anchor. ECDSA P-256 verification takes 174ns (benchmarked with criterion). Cold-cache validation for a new domain is ~90ms, with only 1 network fetch needed (TLD chain is pre-warmed on startup). SRTT-based nameserver selection learns which servers respond fastest — average recursive query drops from 2.8s to 237ms after warmup (12x).

It also handles hostile networks: if your ISP blocks UDP port 53, Numa detects this after 3 failures and switches all queries to TCP automatically. Resets when you change networks. RFC 7816 query minimization means root servers only see the TLD, not your full query.

The DNS cache adjusts TTLs on read (remaining time, not original). Each query is an async tokio task. EDNS0 with DO bit and 1232-byte payload (DNS Flag Day 2020).

Longer term I want to add pkarr/DHT resolution for self-sovereign DNS, but that's future work.

https://github.com/razvandimescu/numa

---

r/rust

Title: I built a recursive DNS resolver from scratch in Rust — DNSSEC, no DNS libraries

Body:

I've been building a DNS resolver in Rust as a learning project that became my daily driver. The entire DNS wire protocol is implemented by hand — no trust-dns, no hickory-dns, no simple-dns. Headers, label sequences, compression pointers, EDNS, all of it.

Some things I found interesting while building this:

Recursive resolution — iterative queries from root hints, walking root → TLD → authoritative. CNAME chasing, A+AAAA glue extraction from additional sections, referral depth limits. TLD priming pre-warms NS + DS + DNSKEY for 34 gTLDs + EU ccTLDs on startup.

DNSSEC chain-of-trust — the most involved part. Verify RRSIG signatures against DNSKEY, walk DS records up to the hardcoded root KSK (key tag 20326). Uses ring for crypto: RSA/SHA-256, ECDSA P-256 (174ns per verify), Ed25519. RFC 3110 RSA keys need converting to PKCS#1 DER for ring — wrote an ASN.1 encoder for that. RRSIG time validity checks per RFC 4035 §5.3.1.

NSEC/NSEC3 denial proofs — proving a name doesn't exist is harder than proving it does. NSEC uses canonical DNS name ordering to prove gap coverage. NSEC3 uses iterated SHA-1 hashing + base32hex + a 3-part closest encloser proof (RFC 5155 §8.4). Both require authority-section RRSIG verification.

Wire protocol parsing — DNS uses a binary format with label compression (pointers back into the packet via 2-byte offsets). Parsing this correctly is surprisingly tricky because pointers can chain. I use a BytePacketBuffer that tracks position and handles jumps.

Performance — TLD chain pre-warming means cold-cache DNSSEC validation needs ~1 DNSKEY fetch (down from 5). Referral DS piggybacking caches DS from authority sections during resolution. ECDSA P-256 verify: 174ns. RSA/SHA-256: 10.9µs. DS verify: 257ns.

LAN service discovery — Numa instances on the same network find each other via UDP multicast. The tricky part was self-filtering: I initially filtered by IP, but two instances on the same host share an IP. Switched to a per-process instance ID (pid ^ nanos).

Auto TLS — generates a local CA + per-service certs using rcgen. numa install trusts the CA in the OS keychain. HTTPS proxy via rustls + tokio-rustls.

Single binary, no runtime dependencies. Uses tokio, axum (REST API/dashboard), hyper (reverse proxy), ring (DNSSEC crypto), reqwest (DoH), socket2 (multicast), rcgen + rustls (TLS).

Happy to discuss any of the implementation decisions.

https://github.com/razvandimescu/numa

---

r/degoogle

Title: I replaced cloud DNS with a recursive resolver — resolves from root, no upstream, DNSSEC

Body:

I wanted a DNS setup with zero cloud dependency. No NextDNS account, no Cloudflare dashboard, no Pi-hole appliance, no upstream resolver seeing my queries. Just a single binary on my laptop that resolves everything itself.

Built one in Rust. What it does:

• Forward mode by default — transparent proxy to your existing DNS with caching and ad blocking. Changes nothing about your network.
• Recursive resolution — set mode = "recursive" and it resolves directly from root nameservers. No Quad9, no Cloudflare, no upstream dependency. Each authoritative server only sees the query for its zone — no single entity sees your full browsing pattern.
• DNSSEC validation — verifies the chain of trust from root KSK. Responses are cryptographically verified — no one can tamper with them in transit.
• System-level ad blocking — Hagezi Pro list (~385K+ domains), works on any network. Coffee shop WiFi, airport, hotel.
• ISP resistant — in recursive mode, if UDP is blocked Numa switches to TCP automatically. Or set mode = "auto" to probe on startup and fall back to encrypted DoH if needed.
• Query minimization — root servers only see the TLD (.com), not your full domain. RFC 7816.
• Zero telemetry, zero cloud — all data stays on your machine. No account, no login, no analytics. Config is a single TOML file.
• Local service naming — bonus for developers: https://app.numa instead of localhost:3000, with auto-generated TLS certs

Single binary, macOS + Linux. sudo numa install and it's your system DNS — forward mode by default, recursive when you're ready. No Docker, no PHP, no external dependencies.

The DNS wire protocol is parsed from scratch — no DNS libraries. You can read every line of code.

brew install razvandimescu/tap/numa
# or
cargo install numa

MIT license. https://github.com/razvandimescu/numa

---

r/node

Title: I replaced localhost:5173 with frontend.numa — auto HTTPS, HMR works, no nginx

Body:

Running a Vite frontend on :5173, Express API on :3000, maybe docs on :4000 — I could never remember which port was which. And CORS between localhost:5173 and localhost:3000 is its own special hell.

How do you get named domains with HTTPS locally?

1. /etc/hosts + mkcert + nginx
2. dnsmasq + mkcert + Caddy
3. sudo numa

What it actually does:

curl -X POST localhost:5380/services \
  -d '{"name":"frontend","target_port":5173}'

Now https://frontend.numa works in my browser. Green lock, valid cert.

• HMR works — Vite, webpack, socket.io all pass through the proxy. No special config.
• CORS solved — frontend.numa and api.numa share the .numa cookie domain. Cross-service auth just works.
• Path routing — app.numa/api → :3000, app.numa/auth → :3001. Like nginx location blocks, zero config files.

No mkcert, no nginx.conf, no Caddyfile, no editing /etc/hosts. Single binary, one command.

brew install razvandimescu/tap/numa
# or
cargo install numa

https://github.com/razvandimescu/numa

---

r/dns

Title: Numa — recursive DNS resolver from scratch in Rust, DNSSEC, no DNS libraries

Body:

I built a recursive DNS resolver where the entire wire protocol (RFC 1035 — headers, label compression, EDNS0) is hand-parsed. No hickory-dns, no trust-dns.

What it does:

• Full recursive resolver from root hints (iterative queries, no upstream needed)
• DNSSEC chain-of-trust validation (RSA/SHA-256, ECDSA P-256, Ed25519)
• EDNS0 with DO bit, 1232-byte payload (DNS Flag Day 2020 compliant)
• DNS-over-HTTPS as an alternative upstream mode
• Ad blocking (~385K+ domains via Hagezi Pro)
• Conditional forwarding (auto-detects Tailscale/VPN split-DNS)
• Local zones, ephemeral overrides with auto-revert via REST API

DNSSEC implementation: DNSKEY/DS/RRSIG record parsing, canonical wire format for signed data, key tag computation (RFC 4034), DS digest verification. Chain walks from zone → TLD → root trust anchor. ECDSA P-256 signature verification in 174ns. TLD chain pre-warmed on startup. Referral DS records piggybacked from authority sections during resolution.

NSEC/NSEC3 authenticated denial of existence: NXDOMAIN gap proofs, NSEC3 closest encloser proofs (3-part per RFC 5155), NODATA type absence proofs, authority-section RRSIG verification. Iteration cap at 500 for NSEC3 DoS prevention.

What it doesn't do (yet): no authoritative zone serving (AXFR/NOTIFY).

Single binary, macOS + Linux. MIT license.

https://github.com/razvandimescu/numa

---

Lobsters (invite-only)

Title: Numa — DNS resolver from scratch in Rust, no DNS libraries

Body:

I built a DNS resolver in Rust — RFC 1035 wire protocol parsed by hand, no trust-dns or hickory-dns. Started as a learning project, became my daily system DNS.

Beyond resolving, it does local .numa domains with auto HTTPS reverse proxy (register frontend.numa → localhost:5173, get a green lock and WebSocket passthrough), and LAN service discovery via UDP multicast — two machines running Numa find each other's services automatically.

Implementation bits I found interesting: DNS label compression (chained 2-byte pointers back into the packet), browsers rejecting wildcard certs under single-label TLDs (*.numa fails — need per-service SANs), and SO_REUSEPORT on macOS for multiple processes binding the same multicast port.

Set mode = "recursive" for DNSSEC-validated resolution from root nameservers — no upstream, no middleman.

Single binary, macOS + Linux.

https://github.com/razvandimescu/numa

---

r/coolgithubprojects

Post type: Image post with hero-demo.gif, GitHub link in first comment.

Title: Numa — portable DNS resolver built from scratch in Rust. Ad blocking, local HTTPS domains, LAN discovery, recursive resolution with DNSSEC. Single binary.

First comment (post immediately):

https://github.com/razvandimescu/numa

brew install razvandimescu/tap/numa && sudo numa

No DNS libraries — RFC 1035 wire protocol parsed by hand. Recursive resolution from root nameservers with full DNSSEC chain-of-trust validation. 385K+ blocked ad domains. .numa local domains with auto TLS and WebSocket proxy.

---

r/sideproject

Title: I built a DNS resolver from scratch in Rust — it's now my daily system DNS

Body:

Last year I wanted to understand how DNS actually works at the wire level, so I started parsing RFC 1035 packets by hand. No DNS libraries, no trust-dns, no hickory-dns — just bytes and the spec.

It turned into something I use every day. What it does now:

• Ad blocking on any network (coffee shops, airports) — 385K+ domains blocked, travels with my laptop
• Local service naming — https://frontend.numa instead of localhost:5173, with auto-generated TLS certs and WebSocket passthrough for HMR
• Recursive resolution from root nameservers with DNSSEC chain-of-trust validation — set mode = "recursive" for full privacy, no upstream dependency, no single entity sees my query pattern
• LAN discovery — two machines running Numa find each other's services automatically via mDNS

Single Rust binary, ~8MB, MIT license. sudo numa install and it's your system DNS — caching, ad blocking, .numa domains, zero config changes.

I wrote about the technical journey here:

• I Built a DNS Resolver from Scratch
• Implementing DNSSEC from Scratch

https://github.com/razvandimescu/numa

---

r/webdev (Showoff Saturday — posted 2026-03-28)

Title: I replaced localhost:5173 with frontend.numa — shared cookie domain, auto HTTPS, no nginx

Body:

The port numbers weren't the real problem. It was CORS between localhost:5173 and localhost:3000, Secure cookies not setting over HTTP, and service workers requiring a secure context.

I built a DNS resolver that gives local services named domains under a shared TLD:

curl -X POST localhost:5380/services \
  -d '{"name":"frontend","target_port":5173}'

Now https://frontend.numa and https://api.numa share the .numa cookie domain. Cross-service auth just works. Secure cookies set. Service workers run.

What's under the hood:

• Auto HTTPS — generates a local CA + per-service TLS certs. Green lock, no mkcert.
• WebSocket passthrough — Vite/webpack HMR goes through the proxy. No special config.
• Path routing — app.numa/api → :3000, app.numa/auth → :3001. Like nginx location blocks.
• Also a full DNS resolver — forward mode with caching and ad blocking by default. Set mode = "recursive" for full DNSSEC-validated resolution from root nameservers.

Single Rust binary. sudo numa install and it's your system DNS — caching, ad blocking, .numa domains. No nginx, no Caddy, no /etc/hosts.

brew install razvandimescu/tap/numa
# or
cargo install numa

https://github.com/razvandimescu/numa

Lessons from r/node (2026-03-24): "Can't remember 3 ports?" got pushback — the CORS/cookie angle resonated more. Lead with what you can't do without it, not what's annoying.

---

r/commandline

Title: numa — local dev DNS with auto HTTPS and LAN service discovery, single Rust binary

Body:

I run 5-6 local services and wanted named domains with HTTPS instead of remembering port numbers. Built a DNS resolver that handles .numa domains:

curl -X POST localhost:5380/services \
  -d '{"name":"api","target_port":8000}'

Now https://api.numa resolves, proxies to localhost:8000, and has a valid TLS cert. WebSocket passthrough works — Vite HMR goes through the proxy fine.

The part I didn't expect to be useful: LAN service discovery. Two machines running numa find each other via UDP multicast. I register api.numa on my laptop, my teammate's numa instance picks it up automatically. Zero config.

Also blocks ~385K+ ad domains since it's already your DNS resolver. Portable — works on any network (coffee shops, airports). Set mode = "recursive" for full DNSSEC-validated resolution from root nameservers — no upstream dependency.

brew install razvandimescu/tap/numa
sudo numa

Single binary, DNS wire protocol parsed from scratch (no DNS libraries).

https://github.com/razvandimescu/numa

---

r/selfhosted (only if Show HN hits front page)

Title: Numa — recursive resolver + ad blocking + LAN service discovery in one binary

Body:

I built a DNS resolver in Rust that I've been running as my system DNS. Two features I'm most proud of:

Recursive resolution + DNSSEC — set mode = "recursive" and it resolves from root nameservers, no upstream dependency. Chain-of-trust verification (RSA, ECDSA, Ed25519), NSEC/NSEC3 denial proofs. No single entity sees your full query pattern — each authoritative server only sees its zone's queries.

LAN service discovery — I register api.numa → localhost:8000 on my laptop. My colleague's machine, also running Numa, picks it up via UDP multicast — api.numa resolves to my IP on his machine. Zero config.

The rest of what it does:

• Ad blocking — ~385K+ domains (Hagezi Pro), portable. Works on any network including coffee shops and airports.
• DNS-over-HTTPS — encrypted upstream as an alternative to recursive mode.
• Auto HTTPS for local services — generates a local CA + per-service TLS certs. https://frontend.numa with a green lock, WebSocket passthrough.
• Hub mode — point other devices' DNS to it, they get ad blocking + .numa resolution without installing anything.

Replaces Pi-hole + Unbound in one binary. No Raspberry Pi, no Docker, no PHP.

Single binary, macOS + Linux. Config is one optional TOML file.

What it doesn't do (yet): No web-based config editor (TOML + REST API). DoT listener is in progress.

brew install razvandimescu/tap/numa or cargo install numa

https://github.com/razvandimescu/numa

---

Preparation Checklist

• Verify GitHub repo is PUBLIC before any post
• Build some comment history on posting account first
• Post HN Tuesday-Thursday, 9-10 AM Eastern
• Respond to every comment within 2 hours for the first 6 hours
• Have fixes ready to ship within 24h for reported issues
• Don't oversell the pkarr/token vision — one sentence max

Rules

• Verify GitHub repo is PUBLIC before every post
• Use an account with comment history, not a fresh one
• Respond to every comment within 2 hours
• Never be defensive — acknowledge valid criticism, redirect
• If someone says "just use X" — agree it works, explain what's uniquely different
• Lead with unique capabilities, not tool replacement

---

Prepared Responses

"What does this offer over /etc/hosts?" (actual r/programare objection) /etc/hosts is static and per-machine. Numa gives you: auto-revert after N minutes (great for testing), a REST API so scripts can create/remove entries, HTTPS reverse proxy with auto TLS, and LAN discovery so you don't have to edit hosts on every device. Different tools for different problems.

"Mature solutions already exist (dnsmasq, nginx, etc.)" (actual r/programare objection) Absolutely — and they're great. The thing they don't do: register a service on machine A and have it automatically appear on machine B via multicast. Numa integrates DNS + reverse proxy + TLS + discovery into one binary so those pieces work together. If you only need DNS forwarding, dnsmasq is the right tool.

"Why not Pi-hole / AdGuard Home?" They're network appliances — need dedicated hardware or Docker. Numa is a single binary on your laptop. When you move to a coffee shop, your ad blocking comes with you. Plus the reverse proxy + LAN discovery.

"Why from scratch / no DNS libraries?" Started as a learning project to understand the wire protocol. Turned out having full control over the pipeline makes features like conditional forwarding and override injection trivial — they're just steps in the resolution chain.

"Vibe coded / AI generated?" I use AI as a coding partner — same as using Stack Overflow or pair programming. I make the architecture decisions, direct what gets built, and review everything. The DNS wire protocol parser was the original learning project I wrote by hand. Later features were built collaboratively with AI assistance. You can read every line — nothing is opaque generated slop.

"Why sudo / why port 53?" Port 53 requires root on Unix. Numa only needs it for the UDP socket. You can also bind to a high port for testing: bind_addr = "127.0.0.1:5353".

"What about .numa TLD conflicts?" The TLD is configurable in numa.toml. If .numa ever becomes official, change it to anything else.

"Does it support DoH/DoT?" DoH is built in — set address = "https://9.9.9.9/dns-query" in [upstream] and your queries are encrypted. Or set mode = "auto" to probe root servers and fall back to DoH if blocked. DoT listener support is in progress (PR #25).

"But Quad9/Cloudflare still sees my queries" In forward mode (the default), yes — your upstream resolver sees your queries. Set mode = "recursive" and Numa resolves directly from root nameservers — no single upstream sees your full query pattern. Each authoritative server only sees the query relevant to its zone. Add [dnssec] enabled = true to cryptographically verify responses.

"Show me benchmarks / performance numbers" (actual r/programare request) Benchmark suite is in benches/ (criterion). Cached round-trip: 691ns. Pipeline throughput: ~2.0M qps. DNSSEC: ECDSA P-256 verify 174ns, RSA/SHA-256 10.9µs, DS verify 257ns. Cold-cache DNSSEC validation ~90ms (1 network fetch, TLD chain pre-warmed). Full comparison against system resolver, Quad9, Cloudflare, Google on the site.

"Why not just use Unbound?" Numa supports recursive resolution with DNSSEC validation, same as Unbound (mode = "recursive"). The difference: Numa also has built-in ad blocking, a dashboard, .numa local domains with auto HTTPS, LAN service discovery, and developer overrides. Unbound does one thing well; Numa integrates six features into one binary.

"Why not Technitium?" Technitium is the closest in features — recursive, DNSSEC, ad blocking, dashboard. Good tool. Two differences: (1) Numa is a single static binary, Technitium requires the .NET runtime; (2) Numa has developer tooling that Technitium doesn't — .numa local domains with auto TLS reverse proxy, path-based routing, LAN service discovery, ephemeral overrides with auto-revert. Different audiences: Technitium targets server admins, Numa targets developers on laptops.

"Does it support Windows?" macOS and Linux are the primary targets. Windows has scaffolding in the code but is not tested. If there's demand, it's on the list.