Subject: What is "service name" in SRV records?

From: Erik Nordmark <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 12 May 2003 16:58:13 +0200 (CEST)

RFC 2782 says
   Currently, the translation from service name to port number happens
   at the client, often using a file such as /etc/services.

I've been assuming that "service name" was the same as "keyword" in
http://www.iana.org/assignments/port-numbers
but the keywords are not unique within the registry.

Somebody else found
http://www.iana.org/assignments/service-names
which has unique service names.

What is the correct answer?

  Erik

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From: "Hallam-Baker, Phillip" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 12 May 2003 08:45:05 -0700

I prefer to avoid port numbers since Web Services such as XKMS don't have
them but are usefully identified in SRV records.

I don't think we want people writing web services to have an incentive to
start burning port numbers just to get an SRV record.

Web Services are not designed to be firewalled on port number, they are
designed to be firewalled by XML aware gateways. So the port number they run
on is not relevant. Most are going to work over either HTTP or DIME.

	Phill

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Erik Nordmark [mailto:[email-masked]]
> Sent: Monday, May 12, 2003 10:58 AM
> To: [email-masked]
> Subject: What is "service name" in SRV records?
> 
> 
> RFC 2782 says

---

From: Paul Vixie <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 12 May 2003 17:24:17 +0000

> No service name is valid for use with SRV until it has been documented in
> a specification which has credible authority over that service. EG,
> neither _whois._tcp.domain.dom nor _nicname._tcp.domain.dom are meaningful
> until one or the other has been explicitly declared as meaningful within
> the context of using SRV RRs to locate the servers associated with a
> specific service.

i'm not sure whether that's true.  at least, that wasn't the authors' intent.

> Once an authoritative specification has been written, the service name is
> whatever the specification defines it to be. Whether or not that name has
> been used anywhere else is simply a matter of convenience.

i'm sure that that is not true.  there has to be a single authoritative list
of "service names", and the above proposal would cause IANA to have to keep
two such lists, neither of which would be authoritative.

---

From: "Eric A. Hall" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 12 May 2003 13:21:26 -0500

on 5/12/2003 12:24 PM Paul Vixie wrote:
>> No service name is valid for use with SRV until it has been
>> documented in a specification which has credible authority over that
>> service. EG, neither _whois._tcp.domain.dom nor
>> _nicname._tcp.domain.dom are meaningful until one or the other has
>> been explicitly declared as meaningful within the context of using
>> SRV RRs to locate the servers associated with a specific service.
> 

I have no doubt that it wasn't your intention but that's the practical
result. Historically, a spec had to detail the usage before a service can
be mapped with SRV in a standardized way, and whatever service name the
spec defined was the service name that got used.

We could argue over whether or not a spec must be written first, and I
won't hold out very long, but that's the way it's shaping up.

-- 
Eric A. Hall                                        http://www.ehsco.com/
Internet Core Protocols          http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/coreprot/