Subject: Re: Last Call: <draft-ietf-nfsv4-federated-fs-dns-srv-namespace-08.txt> (Using DNS SRV to Specify a Global File Name Space with NFS version 4) to Proposed Standard

From: SM <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 12 Sep 2011 02:56:55 -0700

At 15:33 09-09-2011, The IESG wrote:
>The IESG has received a request from the Network File System Version 4 WG
>(nfsv4) to consider the following document:
>- 'Using DNS SRV to Specify a Global File Name Space with NFS version 4'
>   <draft-ietf-nfsv4-federated-fs-dns-srv-namespace-08.txt> as a Proposed
>Standard
>
>The IESG plans to make a decision in the next few weeks, and solicits
>final comments on this action. Please send substantive comments to the
>[email-masked] mailing lists by 2011-09-23. Exceptionally, comments may be

 From Section 3:

   "We propose the use of the DNS SRV resource record type [RFC2782] to
    fulfill this function"

However, the IANA Considerations section says "None".

I suggest that the working group at least puts in a minimal effort in 
filing the IANA book-keeping details.

   "As with the AFSDB resource record type [RFC1183], the
    client need only utter the (relatively) constant domain name for an
    organization in order to locate its filesystem name space service."

RFC 5864 deprecates the use of the AFSDB RR to locate AFS cell 
database servers.

There are a lot of SHOULDs in this draft.  The following sentence in 
Section 5 looks odd:

   "NFS clients compliant to this standard MUST implement this
    functionality."

Although draft-ietf-nfsv4-federated-fs-dns-srv-namespace-08 is 
well-written, it is unclear to me why the SRV RR is not defined 
according to RFC 2782.

 From Section 3:

   "In order to allow the NFSv4 servers so given to export a variety of
    filesystems, those file servers SHOULD export the given domain's root
    filesystems at "/.domainroot-{Name}" within their pseudo-filesystems,
    where the "{Name}" is the name of the organization as used in the SRV
    RR."

Given the normative references to STD 13, it would be better to align 
the wording with DNS terms.

In Section 4.3:

  "A further refinement is advisable, and SHOULD be deployed"

It is not possible to mandate deployment.

In Section 5:

   "In either case, the result of the DNS lookup should be cached
    (obeying TTL) so that the result could be returned more quickly
    the next time."

There is some discussion in RFC 5864 and errata about TTLs.

Regards,
-sm