Subject: I have a problem with 2052bis

From: Maurizio Codogno <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 12 Jul 1999 19:31:17 +0200 (MET DST)

I attended the DNSIND meeting, and I did not understand exactly how 
the proposed selection algorithm in 2052bis works.

The basic idea is that if I have two servers offering a service, one with
weight 1 and another with weight 4, the latter should be selected 4 out of
5 times. This means that running sums are either (4,5) or (1,5),
depending from the order the services have been selected. Fine.

But the text (if I remember well, even the amended one) says 
     "Each time a target is needed, the client should order the remaining
     (not previously used) SRV RRs at the current priority in any
     random fashion, except placing all those with weight 0
     at the beginning of the list"

What does it mean "not previously used"?

ciao, .mau.

(please, Cc: any reply to my address, since I am not subscribed to the
list)

---

From: Robert Elz <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 12 Jul 1999 20:23:50 +0200

Date:        Mon, 12 Jul 1999 19:31:17 +0200 (MET DST)
    From:        Maurizio Codogno <[email-masked]>
    Message-ID:  <[email-masked]>

  | But the text (if I remember well, even the amended one) says 
  |      "Each time a target is needed, the client should order the remaining
  |      (not previously used) SRV RRs at the current priority in any
  |      random fashion, except placing all those with weight 0
  |      at the beginning of the list"
  | 
  | What does it mean "not previously used"?

The idea is that if you're he foobar application client, and you want to
contact a foobar server, you look up the list of SRV records, order them
as described, and then attempt to make a connection to the name that you
selected using the weight algorithm.   If, for any reason, that attempt
fails, then you have to select an alternate server to try.   Then you
take the list from the SRV response, except for those you have already
attempted a connection to ... those are the "previously used" ones.

Can you suggest some wording which might make this a little clearer?

kre