Subject: Re: Lookup from DNS was: X.500, LDAP Considered harmful

From: [email-masked] (Peter Gutmann)
Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2003 21:49:06 +1300

"Anders Rundgren" <[email-masked]> writes:

>Although I don't know all the details concerning the SRV-records, I think it
>is a mistake not to support this in a draft intended for the future.  Phill
>and XKMS-gang have no such hesitations at least, although they really want a
>NAPTR that does SRV+TXT in one bite.

My main concern was that you'd end up mandating something that would be
impossible to do for 99% of the user base, which means it'd end up ignored by
implementors, which is never a good thing for a standard (X9.42, anyone?). I'm
totally open to suggestions on this, perhaps a "Use DNS SRV if possible but be
prepared to have to use the following hack instead"?  Or supply a cutover date
as with UTF8Strings where you're expected to support DNS SRV after the given
date, maybe using an estimate of when > 50% of the user base have moved to XP.
Or maybe just specify the SRV info and leave it at that, using the theory that
having something written down for future use is better than nothing, even if
almsot no-one uses it at the moment.

Peter.

---

From: "Anders Rundgren" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2003 10:18:47 +0100

Peter,

One can see it like this:
If you are pointing at Windows, the user typically have Outlook
or Outlook express.  Now, if Microsoft is going to support
CERTSTORE they will naturally have to ship it with functioning
DNS support.  If that means an upgraded Winsock, it would certainly
not be the first time in history, when Microsoft upgraded the OS
as a part of an application install.

However, it would be better if somebody from the "source" commented
on this.

Anders

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Peter Gutmann" <[email-masked]>
To: <[email-masked]>; <[email-masked]>
Cc: <[email-masked]>
Sent: Tuesday, January 28, 2003 09:49
Subject: Re: Lookup from DNS was: X.500, LDAP Considered harmful

Peter.

---

From: "Anders Rundgren" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2003 11:25:14 +0100

Peter,
It must be possible although a bit awkward to make a free-standing
DNS SRV client-implementation of top of any Winsock-version. 
That's what SUN does with their Java stuff.   Or rather it is what you have
to do as an independent software vendor (ISV), _all_the_time_ in order
to survive changes in APIs etc...

Do I like it?  No.  Do I have a choice?  Not really.

Anders

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Peter Gutmann" <[email-masked]>
To: <[email-masked]>; <[email-masked]>
Cc: <[email-masked]>
Sent: Tuesday, January 28, 2003 09:49
Subject: Re: Lookup from DNS was: X.500, LDAP Considered harmful

Peter.

---

From: Michael Ströder <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2003 13:04:03 +0100

> to survive changes in APIs etc...

Yes. That's least of a problem. There are mature resolver modules for all 
programming environments with support for SRV RRs.

The biggest problem is making developers aware of and accept a standard. 
Application developers most times do not read RFCs or follow IETF mailing lists.

Ciao, Michael.