Subject: Re: How to parse an AXFR response packet

From: "D. J. Bernstein" <[email-masked]>
Date: 14 Apr 2001 16:12:41 -0000

[In October 2000, the IESG said that it had approved Bush's rejection of
``SPAM & other postings unrelated to WG.'' Bush is now attempting to cut
short an on-topic discussion. The WG has not authorized Bush's behavior.
Has the IESG authorized it? Can the IESG do this without WG approval?
See http://cr.yp.to/djbdns/namedroppers.html for background.]

I would have my AXFR client discard authority records if I saw even the
slightest justification for doing so. But all we have here is the BIND
company demonstrating how little it cares about compatibility.

The BIND company's Andreas Gustafsson says, in a document that claims to
be a ``clarification'' of the AXFR protocol, that clients ``MUST ignore
any authority section contents.'' Everyone agrees that this is not
required for interoperability: servers must not, and do not, put
anything into the authority section.

The BIND company's Brian Wellington says ``there may be protocol
extensions in the future.'' But it is the responsibility of the
extension to preserve compatibility. When the standards permit a
particular behavior, and that behavior is deployed, it's too late to
come along and say ``Gee, we might want to prohibit that behavior to
make extensions easier.'' Put the extensions on another port.

The BIND company's Mark Andrews says, in particular, that they might
someday extend the authority section in a way that produces incorrect
results with my client. Does he interpret this as a flaw in this
hypothetical extension? No! He demands that I change my client, and that
all my users upgrade.

Wellington claims that changing my AXFR client to discard authority
records would make it ``more compliant.'' More compliant with what?
Nothing in the existing DNS standards requires, or encourages, or even
suggests this behavior.

---Dan

---

From: Lloyd Wood <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 15 Apr 2001 17:29:09 +0100 (BST)

This seems to be a clear example of emergent mailing list behaviour I
worried about in recent discussion on Poisson (hence the cc.).

Here, Randy holds the conflicting roles of chair, moderator and
reviewer of posts to dnsext. That conflict of roles should not
be allowed to happen.

L.

<[email-masked]>PGP<http://www.ee.surrey.ac.uk/Personal/L.Wood/>

On 14 Apr 2001, D. J. Bernstein wrote:

> Date: 14 Apr 2001 16:12:41 -0000
> From: D. J. Bernstein <[email-masked]>
> To: [email-masked]
> Cc: [email-masked], [email-masked]
> Subject: Re: How to parse an AXFR response packet
>

---

From: "Rahmat M. Samik-Ibrahim" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 17 Apr 2001 10:40:38 +0700

Hello:

I have checked the POISSON charter:
   http://www.ietf.org/html.charters/poisson-charter.html
which has no goal at all. Therefore, I can predict
that this thread will go to /dev/null, with or without
using .procmail. Also, this vendetta can be traced back 
to 1992:
   http://ittf.vlsm.org/ietf/16.txt

Lloyd Wood wrote:

> This seems to be a clear example of emergent mailing list 
> behaviour I worried about in recent discussion on Poisson 
> (hence the cc.).

RFC-2418 is a product of the POISSON group. Do you believe
that the WG should revise it? If yes, which part?
 
> Here, XYZZY holds the conflicting roles of chair,

A hollow sound plugh...  :-) 

DISCLAIMER:
   I believe that DJB's tough DNS implementation sucks,
   but that is not the point!

regards,

-- 
Rahmat M. Samik-Ibrahim - VLSM-TJT - http://rms46.vlsm.org
- If ain't broke, ain't fix IT;but I'm broke, so IMFix IT!

---

From: Lloyd Wood <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 17 Apr 2001 15:13:39 +0100 (BST)

On Tue, 17 Apr 2001, Rahmat M. Samik-Ibrahim wrote:

> > behaviour 

that is, use of mailing list technology becoming list policy...

> > I worried about in recent discussion on Poisson 
> > (hence the cc.).
> 

p.16 'Moderate the WG email list' would have to be revised.

According to that section of RFC2418, the chair is concerned with
discussions _on_ the list, not with contributions _to_ the list.

imo, there's something of a gap between 'attempt to ensure discussions
on the list are relevant and that they converge to consensus
agreements' (as RFC2418 says) and 'pre-filter everything to prevent
the possibility of discussions occurring on the list'.

(imo it would be right and in line with RFC2418 for the chair of
 POISED to tell me to shut up after this has been posted to the list,
 since that would be directing the discussion on the list, but not to 
 a priori prevent the possibility of any discussion occurring.)

John Leslie <[email-masked]> writes

$    We tend to support the _right_ of the WG chair to exercise power
$ even if we don't believe his/her peformance is flawless. (It's so
$ much easier than finding another volunteer!)

No-one's flawless. But RFC2418 doesn't appear to support
pre-filtering by the wg chair.

$   So, Lloyd, we on "poised" really don't feel like solving your
$ problem. I recommend you deal with it.

I'm speaking for myself. Who are you speaking for?

L.