Subject: Re: Any decision on wildcard CNAME ?

From: Alan Barrett <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 12 Oct 2003 11:16:51 +0200

On Sun, 12 Oct 2003, Robert Elz wrote:
> Large numbers of other people who I know read this list haven't
> expressed an opinion at all.   Please do - without more input, there
> isn't going to be any way to come to any kind of conclusion on this.

Either "it should work" or "it is illegal" will do, but I have a slight
preference for defining it to work in the naturally expected way.  The
present situation, where people can argue that it is defined to give
inconsistent results, is unacceptable.

--apb (Alan Barrett)

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From: Kandra Nygårds <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 12 Oct 2003 22:02:39 +0200

From: "Robert Elz" <[email-masked]>

> I'm trying to work out what the WG decision is on wildcard CNAME
> so a new draft can get submitted sometime soon...
>
> As best I can tell, Masatake Ohta and Mark Andrews favour simply
> defining it to work (in the full and naturally expected way).

I don't like wildcards in general, but I don't see any reason why a
synthesized record should have different rules than a "natural" record. I'll
go with this line, at least as far as the protocol goes.

- Kandra

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From: "Eric A. Hall" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 12 Oct 2003 17:21:43 -0500

> isn't going to be any way to come to any kind of conclusion on this.

I don't have an implementation to vote with but if I did I'd vote to make
wildcards work with CNAME as per other inherent limitations.

-- 
Eric A. Hall                                        http://www.ehsco.com/
Internet Core Protocols          http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/coreprot/

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From: Randy Bush <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 13 Oct 2003 15:29:45 +0200

> Randy Bush and Paul Vixie seemed to want to leave the DNS with inconsistent
> results possible.

no, results consistent with 1034.  if qtype=cname then return it.
if not, don't.

randy

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From: [email-masked]
Date: Mon, 13 Oct 2003 09:16:04 -0700

> defining it to work (in the full and naturally expected way).

	In the best of all possible worlds, I think this is
	the right tactic.

--bill

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From: [email-masked]
Date: Mon, 13 Oct 2003 10:44:49 -0700 (PDT)

Robert Elz writes:
> expressed an opinion at all.

I favor the option of "defining it to work (in the full and naturally
expected way)".
-- 
Andreas Gustafsson, [email-masked]

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From: Bob Halley <[email-masked]>
Date: 13 Oct 2003 11:35:54 -0700

I prefer "define it to work" as well.  I think this is the least-surprising
approach and it doesn't add any more special cases to the server.

/Bob

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From: Josh Littlefield <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 13 Oct 2003 16:13:59 -0400

I believe wildcard CNAMES should be defined to work like other wildcards.

Despite the pseudo-code in 4.3.2, I have to imagine that was the 
original intent of RFC1034, because there is no other indication that 
wildcards to not apply to aliases.  I still think this is in the realm 
of clarification.  I also believe it matches common interpretation and 
implementation.

-josh

Robert Elz wrote:

> Rob Austein and Olaf Kolkman seemed to prefer simply defining it to
> be illegal (or undefined, or something essentially equivalent).
> 
> I, and I think some others (but I don't remember the names) want the
> thing fixed, but I don't care which of the above ways.
> 
> results possible.   Or did the last time they wrote.
> 
> kre
-- 
=====================================================================
Josh Littlefield                                  Cisco Systems, Inc.
[email-masked]                             1414 Massachusetts Avenue
tel: 978-936-1379  fax: same               Boxborough, MA  01719-2205

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From: "Olaf M. Kolkman" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 21 Oct 2003 13:34:06 +0200

Namedroppers,

After being off-line for over a week I just had the time to review the
thread. 

Conclusion: The working group has consensus to modify wcard-clarify
to allow for CNAMEs with wildcards and

Process: This is a change to 1034. Even if it is only a clarification
it should stand out really clear. We can do two things, modify the
"wildcard clarify" document or spawn off a small I-D that documents
the change only.

Personally I have a preference for a small I-D, since there is
already consensus on the content it should be a trivial thing to get
through the WG. 

Any takers?

--Olaf

Summary of the discussion follows, no further comments in-line.

The thread started with an issue raised by Vixie.
http://ops.ietf.org/lists/namedroppers/namedroppers.2003/msg01818.html

The core of the problem is that the 1034 algorithm rules will not
allow for a CNAME chain to be followed at a wildcard node except for
when QTYPE=CNAME.  This creates an inconsistency for caching
forwarders: based on the query history (QTYPE has been CNAME or not)
the caching forwarder will give different answers.

After some discussion the consensus was reached that this problem needed
to be addressed.

Two possible solutions where presented and the working group was asked
to reach consensus on those.
(http://ops.ietf.org/lists/namedroppers/namedroppers.2003/msg01853.html)

After the call by Elz (
http://ops.ietf.org/lists/namedroppers/namedroppers.2003/msg01895.html
) we had a number of people expressing a clear preference for allowing
CNAMEs to exist in combination with wildcards.

-- Olaf
   DNSEXT Co-Chair

---------------------------------| Olaf M. Kolkman
---------------------------------| RIPE NCC

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From: "Olaf M. Kolkman" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 23 Oct 2003 17:35:05 +0200

namedroppers,

> already consensus on the content it should be a trivial thing to get

Putting money where my mouth is but missing the 'initial submission
deadline' I have something ready to be published shortly after the
IETF.

If you want to read and comment upon it:
http://www.ripe.net/DISI/Notes/draft-kolkman-wcard-cname-processing-00.html
or alternatively
http://www.ripe.net/DISI/Notes/draft-kolkman-wcard-cname-processing-00.txt

-- Olaf