Subject: "local" names

From: "Donald E. Eastlake 3rd" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 27 Dec 1999 08:52:53 -0500

I have received a request to change "local" in
draft-ietf-dnsind-local-names-07.txt.  In particular, the correspondent
said:

... I do prefer another name though. Something like .intra or
.internal. These names associate better with the meaning of an
internal network. Moreover, internal networks of big companies tend to
have a global coverage rather then a local one.  .Intra or .internal
nicely fit into:
    www.mycompany.com is for our international customers,
    www.mycompany.nl aims at customers in The Netherlands,
    etc.
    www.mycompany.intra aims at the employee's of the company.

Does anyone on namedroppers have an opinon on this?

Thanks,
Donald
===================================================================
 Donald E. Eastlake 3rd   +1 914-276-2668   [email-masked]
 65 Shindegan Hill Rd, RR#1  +1 914-784-7913(w)     [email-masked]
 Carmel, NY 10512 USA

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From: Paul A Vixie <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 27 Dec 1999 09:58:33 -0800

i would prefer .private

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From: Andrew Brown <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 27 Dec 1999 16:12:23 -0500

>Does anyone on namedroppers have an opinon on this?

so far i've used the localhost[*] zone for this, with much success.
it's nice to be able to set up cnames for hosts outside my control so
that i can use a "short" name of my choosing to refer to it, all the
while stepping around the problem of things that use the $HOSTALIASES
file, or the /etc/hosts files, or whatever else you can think of for
name service[**].  it keeps the data from moving to too many places.
"intra" would be okay too, i guess.  just different.

[*] of course, i'm a bit of a loon, and my 1.0.0.127.in-addr.arpa
points to localhost., so that having a localhost zone (with an a
record of 127.0.0.1) makes sense.  it keeps the zone names out of it.
i'm of the (possibly fanatical) opinion that all nameserves ought to
be able to tell you what 1.0.0.127.in-addr.arpa points to (and that it
not have a zone suffix), as well as the address of localhost.

[**] i hate it when i can "ping" some host by name, but not ssh to it,
since the name i'm "looking up" is in one database, but not another.

-- 
|-----< "CODE WARRIOR" >-----|
[email-masked]             * "ah!  i see you have the internet
[email-masked] (Andrew Brown)                that goes *ping*!"
[email-masked]       * "information is power -- share the wealth."

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From: Masataka Ohta <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 28 Dec 99 10:41:11 JST

Paul;

> i would prefer .private

.priv should be better, because it is less English centric.

						Masataka Ohta

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From: Robert Elz <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 28 Dec 1999 20:11:32 +1100

Date:        Mon, 27 Dec 1999 08:52:53 -0500
    From:        "Donald E. Eastlake 3rd" <[email-masked]>
    Message-ID:  <[email-masked]>

  | I have received a request to change "local" in
  | draft-ietf-dnsind-local-names-07.txt.
  | Does anyone on namedroppers have an opinon on this?

I would prefer the whole draft just vanish into oblivion, or perhaps
be turned into a (part of a) chapter in Cricket's book's next edition,
as a "how you can do this if you really have to" type of thing, and all
the local names be simply left to local discretion.   While I can just
barely see that there may be some cases where something like that might
be useful for some people, I can't think of a single solitary reason that
there needs to be anything even resembling a standardised way of doing it
(not even as much as an informational rfc represents).

kre

---

From: Jim Reid <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 28 Dec 1999 21:27:00 +0000

>>>>> Robert Elz <[email-masked]> writes:

    >> | draft-ietf-dnsind-local-names-07.txt.  Does anyone on
    >> | namedroppers have an opinon on this?

    >> I would prefer the whole draft just vanish into oblivion, or
    >> perhaps be turned into a (part of a) chapter in Cricket's
    >> book's next edition, as a "how you can do this if you really
    >> have to" type of thing, and all the local names be simply left
    >> to local discretion.  While I can just barely see that there
    >> may be some cases where something like that might be useful for
    >> some people, I can't think of a single solitary reason that
    >> there needs to be anything even resembling a standardised way
    >> of doing it (not even as much as an informational rfc
    >> represents).

An officially reserved TLD for intranets would be a Good Thing, if
only to stop people inventing their own and possibly causing (future?)
naming clashes with real TLDs. It's a bit like RFC1918 addressing, but
for the name space instead of IP addresses. A formal recommendation or
standard - call it what you like - has to be better than the present
ad-hoc arrangements. It would give stronger ammunition to those who
have to shoot down requests or demands for silly TLDs on their
intranets. In that world, an RFC will be a more potent weapon than a
few pages in a book.

There are some other reasons for formalising this TLD. The naming
problems are not as difficult when two private intranets get smashed
together if they are both using the same "private" TLD. Think about
how to change N-thousand resolvers to lookup both .tld1 and .tld2 when
company1 and company2 merge. [Been there, done that, got the T-shirt
and don't want to do it again, thanks very much.] An official TLD would
save people building new intranets from repeating the same mistakes by
just plucking names out of the air. Life would also be a lot easier
for a private intranet that used this placeholder TLD if it ever
decided to get connected to the internet.

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From: "Al Costanzo" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 28 Dec 1999 16:24:26 -0500

IMHO, I think this is a good idea.  I can remember 10 years ago when Prime
computer setup a private network that wrapped around the world with
thousands upon thousands of nodes within it. Would have been marvelous then
as well as now.

As far as the suffix is concerned, my own opinion would be to use: '.intra'.

Everyone is familiar with the word Intranet vs. Internet so it makes sense
to me to base the phrase-oligy on something familiar.

     | -----Original Message-----
     | From: [email-masked]
     | [mailto:[email-masked]]On Behalf Of Donald
     | E. Eastlake
     | 3rd
     | Sent: lunedì 27 dicembre 1999 8.53
     | To: [email-masked]
     | Subject: "local" names
     |
     |
     | I have received a request to change "local" in
     | draft-ietf-dnsind-local-names-07.txt.  In particular, the
     | correspondent
     | said:
     |
     |
     | ... I do prefer another name though. Something like .intra or
     | .internal. These names associate better with the meaning of an
     | internal network. Moreover, internal networks of big
     | companies tend to
     | have a global coverage rather then a local one.  .Intra or .internal
     | nicely fit into:
     |     www.mycompany.com is for our international customers,
     |     www.mycompany.nl aims at customers in The Netherlands,
     |     etc.
     |     www.mycompany.intra aims at the employee's of the company.
     |
     |
     | Does anyone on namedroppers have an opinon on this?
     |
     | Thanks,
     | Donald
     | ===================================================================
     |  Donald E. Eastlake 3rd   +1 914-276-2668   [email-masked]
     |  65 Shindegan Hill Rd, RR#1  +1 914-784-7913(w)     [email-masked]
     |  Carmel, NY 10512 USA
     |

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From: Andrew Brown <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 28 Dec 1999 15:16:35 -0500

>(not even as much as an informational rfc represents).

i think we're not looking for a "standardised way of doing it", but a
place on the tree to hang whatever you want.  and for me to hang
whatever i want.  without me stepping on your toes, or you on mine.

call it .rose then.  :)

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From: John Gilmore <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 28 Dec 1999 18:41:32 -0800

For a moment I wondered, "Why are we even discussing this?"  I thought
the WG chairs had wisely decided two months ago in their "housecleaning",
to drop work on this document.

But I was wrong -- that was the "local compression" document, not the
"local names" document.

However, I hope the WG chairs will ask for a WG consensus on *this*
document, and also put a stake through its heart.  We have enough real
work to do on the DNS without burning time & energy on this kind of
makework.

	John

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From: Edward Lewis <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 29 Dec 1999 09:00:34 -0500

>document, and also put a stake through its heart.  We have enough real

I agree with John Gilmore and Robert Elz.  This work item is:

1) Not within the documented charter of DNSIND
2) Not within the documented proposed charter of DNSEXT
3) Placing a requirement on IANA's assignment of names

>From the DNSIND charter (IETF web site):

>The DNS Incremental Transfer, Notification, and Dynamic Update Working
>Group is concerned with three areas of future
>DNS protocol development:
>
>1. Incremental Zone Transfer - As the sizes of some zone files have grown
>quite large, it is believed that a protocol addition
>to allow the transfer of only the changed subset of a zone will reduce net
>traffic and the load on critical servers.
>
>2. Change Notification - There can be large time intervals during which at
>least one secondary has data that is inconsistent
>with the primary. The proposed ``notify'' mechanism (where the primary
>sends a message to known secondaries) facilitates
>fast convergence of servers vis-a-vis consistency of data in the zones.
>
>3. Dynamic Update - The need to frequently update small portions of a
>large zone and to have those updates propagate is
>perceived.

>From the DNSEXT proposed charter (namedroppers, 10/21/99):

>The DNS Extensions Working Group is chartered to ...
>
>Issues surrounding the operation of DNS, recommendations concerning
>the configuration of DNS servers, and other issues with the use of the
>protocol are out of this Working Group's charter.  These issues are

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=--=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Edward Lewis                                                NAI Labs
Phone: +1 443-259-2352                      Email: [email-masked]

"Trying is the first step to failure." - Homer Simpson
"No! Try not. Do... or do not. There is no try." - Yoda

Opinions expressed are property of my evil twin, not my employer.

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From: Andrew Brown <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 29 Dec 1999 12:53:08 -0500

>work to do on the DNS without burning time & energy on this kind of

i think, imho, that you're over-reacting a little.

granted, the local compression idea would have required work on the
part of dns workers everwhere, both in terms of hashing out the
details for compatibility (or whatever...i never followed that draft),
but this is a little different.

this draft is on a par with declaring 10.0.0.0/8 to be private (which
some people don't do properly), and declaring example.com (and .net
and .org) to be reserved for non-internet use (except as examples or
as local-use-only zones).  there's nothing in bind (to pick a dns
implementation) to handle these things in any special way, and i'd be
quite surprised if any other implementations had anything.

the only point for debate here si what name you think it should be.
and if you don't like the idea at all, you can probably get along just
fine by ignoring the whole thing and never looking at the results.

as for the .intra thing...that implies "intranet" to me, and i don't
have one.  there are, however, several places where i don't have
intranets that a .local (or .rose or .whatever) tld would be of great
use to me.  so i, personally, don't like the .intra idea because it
seems a little slanted.  whether or not any of these points mean
anything to anyone is purely up to you.