ietf-mxcomp
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RE: Wild card MXes

2004-05-28 11:49:42

You still don't get it. In Windows the GUI is the O/S.

I get it just fine. The system provides means for Exchange to
implement
whatever UI extensions it needs to; they just don't want to do it. 

Your psychic abilities must be having a bad day, or perhaps today's
clouds and rain are interfering with the transmission, but this is
absolutely not at all our thought process. I'm sorry if your anecdotal
experience leaves you with the impression that you understand all the
design and logistical constraints we're under in shipping either
Exchange (or Windows for that matter), but we really and truly can't get
there from here.

I mean,
they don't have any problems extending AD or other system services
when
they need to, but wowzers a simple RR has them stumped.

Apples to oranges: we have our own Exchange data in the AD yes, but
don't mess with OS constructs.

Moreover, we need to work even when our customers use TXT zone files
rather than AD storage for their DNS data, and, as your experiment
showed and I doubly confirmed for my own sanity's sake just now by
reading the source, there is no zone file parse routine that deals with
unknown RR types. Curiously, and asymmetrically, there is one that
*writes* such data, though, as you saw, it completely looses the unknown
type number in its representation:

        PCHAR Dns_RecordStringForType(IN WORD wType)
        // from the zone file write routines
                {
                PSTR pstr = private_StringForRecordType( wType );
                if (!pstr) pstr = "UNKNOWN";
                return  pstr;
                }

If, having populated a new RR type, and written its zone file, you then
cause it be reread (either at boot, or whenever the DNS server restarts
for whatever reason), then the following type of error is logged:

        The DNS server encountered an unknown or unsupported resource
record
        (RR) type UNKNOWN in zone file XXXXXX.com.dns at line 84.
Although the
        DNS server continues to load, ignoring this RR, it is
recommended that
        you either correct the record type or remove this RR from the
zone
        file. The zone file is located in the %SystemRoot%\System32\Dns
directory.

Thus, as I previously indicated, it is really the case that unknown RR
types cannot in fact be recoverably persisted in zone files.

Then there's the issue of zones that don't support dynamic update at all
(ie: most of them in question, them being Internet-facing servers). What
update method is available for injecting data into these?

In sum, I continue to stand by my earlier point that there is no
reasonable way we can get new RR types configured into a domain's
Windows DNS server. Our customers thus can't serve new RR types.

I'm sitting here wondering if they really expected to have dumb users
type
up XML documents and add them by hand to the directory, but can't
figure
out how to create a dialog box that adds a simple RR to the only
naming
service that they support. Incredible.

I can code the dialog box as well as the next guy, I'm sure. But if you
still believe after all I've said that that's actually the underlying
issue, then I'm at a loss as to what more I could say to be more clear;
sorry.

        Bob



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