Subject: Re: draft-ietf-ipngwg-dns-lookups-04.txt

From: Paul A Vixie <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 14 Oct 1999 11:12:10 -0700

> Let me restate the situation.  The user refers to short-form name H,
> and the resolver is configured to search domains D1, ..., Dn.
> 
> As I see it, the FQDN the user is implicitly naming is the first one
> which *exists* from the sequence H.D1, ..., H.Dn.  Then the resolver
> gives back whatever suitable records are listed for that FQDN, or
> some sort of error if there are none.

we went through this in pure IPv4, too, due to early API ambiguity
between "name doesn't exist at all" and "name exists, but there are
no address records."  in fact it was KRE who complained about it then,
as now.  so assuming

	H.D1	IN MX	10 foo
and
	H.D2	IN A	10.0.0.53

and a domain search list of D1,D2, it used to be that "ping h" would
return "no such host".  now it pings 10.0.0.53.  to me, this is the
same issue except that we're fine-pointing on the meaning of the
question "are there address records at this node?"

---

From: [email-masked]
Date: Fri, 15 Oct 1999 15:04:19 +1000

> question "are there address records at this node?"

 Paul has heard my views on the behaviour in the past. i.e. I think
 that it is broken in the same way that RFC1535 show the old search
 list behaviour to be broken.

 I understand why the current behaviour is there, to cope with
 wildcard records with the old search list behaviour.

 To my view this is as dangerous as having the old search list
 behaviour.

 The current behaviour has it such that you can telnet to a box
 and then attempt to send mail to the same box and get two different
 fully qualified named.

 I for would be happy to see this behaviour change even though it
 may break some existing systems that are depending upon it.  It is
 counter intuitive.  It should even be possible to have to new lookup
 mechanisms get the new behaviour getipnodebyname() and the old 
 gethostbyname() implement different search strategies.

 Mark
--
Mark Andrews, Internet Software Consortium
1 Seymour St., Dundas Valley, NSW 2117, Australia
PHONE: +61 2 9871 4742                 INTERNET: [email-masked]