Subject: in support of axfr-clarify

From: Paul Vixie <[email-masked]>
Date: 27 Nov 2002 04:58:02 +0000

axfr-clarify should go forward, for two reasons.

first, bind has done wrong.  early versions were only barely within rfc1035,
forcing other implementors (notably microsoft) to bend to match field
behaviour.  bind9 is entirely within rfc1035 regarding axfr, and current
bind8 is reasonably close.  we need to clarify the spec so that all future
implementations can know what the right thing is.

second, i've seen comments here to the effect that a name node's ownership
was zone-independent, and that's just plain wrong.  again, early bind got
this horribly wrong and caused a lot of pain and confusion, and we need to
retain what's been learned (which is foundational to rfc2181 and rfc2308),
which is that a delegation point is owned by the child zone and the parent
can at best send delegations, never answers and never authoritative, when
queried for things at a child zone's delegation point.  bind9 does this
correctly.  an apparently common misunderstanding as to the contents of a
zone is that data can be copied from a child without changing the identity
of the parent.  this is just false, and is indicative of other conceptual
errors.

i hereby call for the rapid progression of axfr-clarify along the standards
track.  it will do much good, and right many wrongs.
-- 
Paul Vixie

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