If someone wants to add a new RR type to their DNS server, and their
server cannot handle it, then they can simply replace/upgrade their
server.
And if someone wants to leverage the DNS protocol and
DNS server software in order to operate a global
distributed database, then there are no barriers to
doing this on ports other than port 53. The IETF barely
needs to be involved at all other than defining the
new RR.
But when someone suggests that port 53 servers should
all support some new RR or anything else that is new,
now we are talking about a major upgrade to the Internet's
mission critical infrastructure impacting millions of
people worldwide. Here the IETF has a major role to play
and the IETF should tread very carefully.
In fact, the issue of port 53 services being such an
important infrastructure leads me to think that the IETF
should freeze the DNS protocol definition for anything
that is not directly related to the job that port 53
servers MUST do. Things like DNSSEC are OK, but leveraging
DNS for a global distributed database are not.
Since there is great interest in using the DNS protocol
for a distributed database, it would help to fork the DNS
protocol and deal with this work in a separate WG and
using a separate port number. Such a WG might also consider
issuing a document comparing DNS and LDAP so that it
is clear to all, when and why you might choose DNS for a
distributed database over LDAP.
This is no different than anyone else who wants new functionality in
a system that doesn't support the new stuff, and nothing at all
remarkable.
Really, if they want new stuff in this system that
doesn't support new stuff, they might as well stuff it
all in the TXT RR.
The issue that one needs to consider, is whether some third party's
system is either going to interfere with my use of the new functionality
(examples of firewalls in ISPs and similar are places where this kind
of consideration might apply), or whether the new functionality is going
to cause problems for third party systems.
Defining a general-use DNS database protocol separately
from Domain Naming Services allows one to address all these
issues directly.
--Michael Dillon
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