Subject: [DNSOP] I-D ACTION:draft-ietf-dnsop-serverid-08.txt

From: [email-masked]
Date: Fri, 16 Feb 2007 15:50:02 -0500

A New Internet-Draft is available from the on-line Internet-Drafts 
directories.
This draft is a work item of the Domain Name System Operations Working Group of the IETF.

	Title		: Requirements for a Mechanism Identifying a Name Server Instance
	Author(s)	: D. Conrad, S. Woolf
	Filename	: draft-ietf-dnsop-serverid-08.txt
	Pages		: 13
	Date		: 2007-2-16
	
With the increased use of DNS anycast, load balancing, and other
   mechanisms allowing more than one DNS name server to share a single
   IP address, it is sometimes difficult to tell which of a pool of name
   servers has answered a particular query.  A standardized mechanism to
   determine the identity of a name server responding to a particular
   query would be useful, particularly as a diagnostic aid for
   administrators.  Existing ad hoc mechanisms for addressing this need
   have some shortcomings, not the least of which is the lack of prior
   analysis of exactly how such a mechanism should be designed and
   deployed.  This document describes the existing convention used in
   some widely deployed implementations of the DNS protocol, including
   advantages and disadvantages, and discusses some attributes of an
   improved mechanism.

A URL for this Internet-Draft is:
http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-ietf-dnsop-serverid-08.txt

To remove yourself from the I-D Announcement list, send a message to 
[email-masked] with the word unsubscribe in the body of 
the message. 
You can also visit https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/I-D-announce 
to change your subscription settings.

Internet-Drafts are also available by anonymous FTP. Login with the 
username "anonymous" and a password of your e-mail address. After 
logging in, type "cd internet-drafts" and then 
"get draft-ietf-dnsop-serverid-08.txt".

A list of Internet-Drafts directories can be found in
http://www.ietf.org/shadow.html 
or ftp://ftp.ietf.org/ietf/1shadow-sites.txt

Internet-Drafts can also be obtained by e-mail.

Send a message to:
	[email-masked].
In the body type:
	"FILE /internet-drafts/draft-ietf-dnsop-serverid-08.txt".
	
NOTE:	The mail server at ietf.org can return the document in
	MIME-encoded form by using the "mpack" utility.  To use this
	feature, insert the command "ENCODING mime" before the "FILE"
	command.  To decode the response(s), you will need "munpack" or
	a MIME-compliant mail reader.  Different MIME-compliant mail readers
	exhibit different behavior, especially when dealing with
	"multipart" MIME messages (i.e. documents which have been split
	up into multiple messages), so check your local documentation on
	how to manipulate these messages.

Below is the data which will enable a MIME compliant mail reader
implementation to automatically retrieve the ASCII version of the
Internet-Draft.
_______________________________________________
DNSOP mailing list
[email-masked]
https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/dnsop

---

From: Dean Anderson <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 18 Feb 2007 00:39:43 -0500 (EST)

Umm, this document does not describe how NSID the came about. 

I believe that, as Suzanne Woolf described Fri, 16 Dec 2005, such a 
description of history is worthwhile:

>Documenting where NSID came from is IMHO still worthwhile, although
>the original intent was to have serverid published by now. However,
>arguing that serverid is useless because NSID exists gets chronology
>and causality both exactly backwards.

The text however doesn't accomplish the task of documenting where NSID
came from.  Indeed, it even barely mentions that NSID exists. There is
only a reference to the NSID draft.  There is no explanation of the
relationship of NSID and the serverid draft. The document seems to have
lost focus, and in anycase hasn't been discussed.  A good portion of
what's there is good for what it is, but it seems only about half done.

The rest of the text is problematic. As the text stands now, the draft
appears to a specify implemenation, not operation, and is therefore out
of scope for DNSOP.  Readers of this document will likely be confused on
how to identify anycast'd servers, and would probably think they need to
make a SERVER.ID or CHAOS type query rather than a query with the NSID
option set. Publishing this draft as-is will lead to confusion.

For example, it doesn't explain why the SERVER.ID/BIND CHAOS type query
fails to identify an anycast'd server, which was a critical realization
which led to the creation of the NSID draft.  It mentions nothing at all
about the stateless nature of UDP DNS queries, or that after sending a
test query, sending a subsequent SERVER.ID query to an anycast set
doesn't identify the server that answered the original test query. This
fact is what necessitated the NSID draft, and led to the abandonment of 
SERVER.ID as a means of identification. 

Particularly, it is important to document the chonology and causality of
the various SERVERID and NSID documents.  If you don't have this history
documented, then you can't really claim to have documented where NSID
came from.

This document should not be published at this time.

Dean Anderson
Av8 Internet, Inc

-- 
Av8 Internet   Prepared to pay a premium for better service?
www.av8.net         faster, more reliable, better service
617 344 9000

---

From: Dean Anderson <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 18 Feb 2007 00:39:43 -0500 (EST)

Dean Anderson
Av8 Internet, Inc