Subject: [DNSOP] terminology, additional language for bailiwick

From: "Wiley, Glen" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 15 Jul 2015 16:36:54 +0000

The draft-ietf-dnsop-dns-terminology draft will be helpful in normalizing
language in documentation and
for folks new to the industry, I like where it is heading.  I¹d like to
recommend adding a few sentences to in the paragraphs on bailiwick.  I
think the original text is pretty close but the additions below would make
it more helpful to a less familiar reader as bailiwick is particularly
confusing to some folks (as was noted in earlier exchanges on this list).

The current text reads:

In-bailiwick:

      (a) An adjective to describe a name server whose name is either
      subordinate to or (rarely) the same as the zone origin.  In-
      bailiwick name servers require glue in their parent zone.

      (b) Data for which the server is either authoritative, or else
      authoritative for an ancestor of the owner name.  This sense of
      the term normally is used when discussing the relevancy of glue
      records in a response.  For example, the server for the parent
      zone example.com might reply with glue records for
      ns.child.example.com.  Because the child.example.com zone is a
      descendant of the example.com zone, the glue records are in-
      bailiwick.

   Out-of-bailiwick:  The antonym of in-bailiwick.

Id like to suggest something like this:

(a) An adjective to describe a name server whose name is either
subordinate to or (rarely) the same as the zone origin. In-
bailiwick name servers require glue in their parent zone. For
example if the com. name server refers a query for a.example.com
to ns.example.com the resolver would consider ns.example.com
in-bailiwick.
--
Glen Wiley
Principal Engineer
Verisign, Inc.
(571) 230-7917

http://vbsdcon.com

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From: Stephane Bortzmeyer <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 17 Jul 2015 16:08:00 +0200

On Wed, Jul 15, 2015 at 04:36:54PM +0000,
 Wiley, Glen <[email-masked]> wrote 

> to ns.example.com the resolver would consider ns.example.com

I don't think it is a good example. After all, the sentence is only
true if there is a zone cut between com and example but not between
example and a. (Which is the case today for example.com but not
guaranteed for the future.)

If you want a better example:

For example if example.com is delegated to the name server
ns.example.com, then ns.example.com is in-bailiwick.

[Personal note: this definition of in-bailiwick does not seem to me
very common. The original one, and the most common by far, is the one
in b)]