ietf
[Top] [All Lists]

Re: Last Call: 'Linklocal Multicast Name Resolution (LLMNR)' to Proposed Standard

2005-08-25 10:26:49
I do not understand how defining a new, different service on a new 
port will kill anything.

Are you saying that you *REALLY* do not understand how the IETF defining 
a new protocol, and stating publicly that it's intended to compete with 
some established protocol, gives all the appearance of an attempt to kill 
off that existing protocol? An attempt to split implementers into two 
non-interoperating camps? An attempt to cause customers and other 
implementers to put off making a decision on either protocol while they 
wait to see which camp wins?

Of course LLMNR won't actually kill off mDNS, but there's a real risk of 
it causing confusion and delay. And, in the process, the failed effort to 
kill off mDNS squanders the IETF's credibility.

Before you claim that LLMNR was not intended to compete with mDNS, this 
is from Bernard Aboba's LLMNR FAQ:

<http://www.drizzle.com/~aboba/DNSEXT/llmnrfaq.html>

Rendezvous [Bonjour] is an individual submission that is not a work
item of any IETF working group, and is currently not an IETF standard.
While it is possible for an individual submission to become an
IETF standard, this is unlikely in this case because an existing
WG (DNSEXT) is already working on a competing protocol (LLMNR)

Before you claim that it's not causing confusion in the broader 
community, this is from the Wikipedia entry for "Zeroconf":

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeroconf>

Name resolution
There are two very similar ways of figuring out which
networked item has a certain name. Apple Computer's Multicast
DNS (mDNS) is in use, but is not an IETF standard. Microsoft's
Link-local Multicast Name Resolution (LLMNR) is not yet being
used, but is being officially standardized by the IETF.

There's a clear message being promulgated that the two protocols are 
more-or-less equivalent in functionality, the only significant difference 
being that one has the endorsement of the IETF and the other doesn't.

It would go a long way to ease my concerns if the LLMNR specification 
stated clearly in its introduction that it's NOT intended to compete with 
mDNS, because LLMNR doesn't have any of the functionality that mDNS 
provides to enable network browsing and service discovery.

Stuart Cheshire <cheshire(_at_)apple(_dot_)com>
 * Wizard Without Portfolio, Apple Computer, Inc.
 * www.stuartcheshire.org


_______________________________________________
Ietf mailing list
Ietf(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org
https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf

<Prev in Thread] Current Thread [Next in Thread>