Subject: RE: [RFC 1464?] RE: Alternative to TXT or new RR was: Comments ondraft-ietf-marid-core-01 xml use

From: "Michel Py" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 11 Jun 2004 13:29:17 -0700

> Gordon Fecyk wrote:
> No one's brought up RFC 1464 yet, which describes how to store
> unique and arbitrary information in TXT records in DNS. SPF does
> this, DMP does this. It avoids the TXT record collision problem
> by describing a unique attribute name along with a value for the
> attribute.

I don't think that's the main concern. I believe that the issue is that
there is no way to request 'all TXT records which attribute equals "v"
and value begins with "spf1"'. Unless I missed something the way to
check for specific records is to query for all TXT records then parse
which ones are relevant, which is sub-optimal. I could live with it, but
apparently many people can't.

> How does ISC dhcpd store its host information in the TXT
> records?  And how does it tell the difference between
> its own records and something else's? Doesn't it use a
> token like RFC 3309 or an attribute format like RFC 1464?

That would be interesting to know indeed.

Michel.

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From: "Rich Rosenbaum" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 12 Jun 2004 19:18:26 -0400

Some notes on RFC 1464:

As has been noted, RFC 1464 never progressed beyond being experimental, so
calling a TXT record that conforms to it "standards-based" is not correct.

Over the years since 1464 was published I've received occasional inquiries
about it; some people claim to have used it in their applications. However I
believe SPF was the first time wide scale deployment of a 1464-compliant TXT
record scheme was proposed.

The bottom line is that RFC 1464 was a syntax proposal design to simplify
information sharing. A registry was proposed to control name collisions, but
that never happened. It still seems to be a reasonable approach and perhaps
someone will put it back on the standards track someday if appropriate.

Rich
[author, RFC 1464]

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From: "Michel Py" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 12 Jun 2004 19:50:37 -0700

> Rich Rosenbaum wrote:
> The bottom line is that RFC 1464 was a syntax proposal
> design to simplify information sharing. A registry was
> proposed to control name collisions, but that never
> happened. It still seems to be a reasonable approach
> and perhaps someone will put it back on the standards
> track someday if appropriate.

Thanks for the feedback, Rich. IMHO, this WG will yield significant
benefits by finding the appropriate way to update RFC1464 by a) creating
a registry for it and b) upgrading status to standards track. It should
be easier to get on the standards track now that there is at least one
(SPF) implementation that is widely in use.

Michel.

---

From: "Rich Rosenbaum" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 13 Jun 2004 12:56:19 -0400

> I wrote:
> The bottom line is that RFC 1464 was a syntax proposal design to 
> simplify information sharing. A registry was proposed to control name 
> collisions, but that never happened. It still seems to be a reasonable 
> approach and perhaps someone will put it back on the standards track 
> someday if appropriate.

Apologies for the ambiguity of my message. I meant to say that I thought the
syntax part (the core of RFC 1464) was a reasonable idea. I agree with
Phillip that the creation of a registry requires more thought.

Preventing name collisions through use of careful identifier selection would
be a good idea, registry or not (especially with no registry).

Rich