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Re: concerning draft-josefsson-dns-url-08.txt

2003-07-02 19:42:10


--On lørdag, juni 28, 2003 00:47:26 +0000 Paul Vixie <vixie(_at_)fh(_dot_)vix(_dot_)com> wrote:

dns is a distributed, autonomous, coherent, reliable database.  a syntax
that allows entity A and entity B to speak incoherently about a given
<qname, qtype,qclass> would violate the coherency of the design.  the
only exception would be if you intended to be able to represent all
attributes of a dns query, which i think would be useless, but would
allow hostport but require RD, buffer size, and other EDNS OPT options to
be invented later.

just because I feel like fiddling around with definitions...

using the definitions of RFC 3254, "Definitions for talking about directories" (ok, I'm quoting myself again :-), I'd say:

- the global DNS service is a global, cooperative repository - "there can be only one", and the pieces pass stuff around between each other.

- there exist local repositories that use the DNS protocol for access, but that are not the global repository (split horizon installations and "alternate root" stuff, for instance).

Hostport may or may not be useful for identifiying access to those services; as the IRC community has learned, and the WWW folks may be learning, identifying the place where a service is available is not a functional replacement for naming the service, but that doesn't prevent people from using it as if it was.

("hostport" does seem a bit recursive, though; in what DNS service is the "host" part of the "hostport" to be looked up?..... RFC 2396 is silent on the issue....)

                  Harald