Re: [Add] New Version Notification for draft-mglt-add-rdp-02.txt

[Daniel Migault <[e-mail]>]

Hi Ben,

Thanks for the comment. First I agree that I should clarify the text and I
am working on it.

The intent of the list is to provide a "list of recommended resolvers".
However, the list does not provide the resolvers as well as their
characteristics. Instead it provides the resolving domain that can be seen
as an indirection to these resolvers. As a result, the final candidate
resolvers are retrieved from a SVCB query over the resolving domain. The
resolver and associated characteristics of the resolver are clearly
provided by the owner of the resolving domain and not the owner of the
"list of resolvers".

I think I understand what you mean by the violation of the principle of the
DNS. This would typically be the case if connectivity information ( IP
addresses for example) would be provided directly by the owner of the FQDN
that represents the list of resolvers. It is a bit different here as PTR
indicates an indirection.

The reason I am using PTR is that I would like to use DNS only and not
necessarily mandate that HTTP, FTP or email be mandatory.  In addition, the
use of PTR enables some sanity checks of the resolving domains.
I agree that this might not be very convenient for very very large list. I
would envision that systems that need such very large lists of resolving
domains may have their own mechanisms to provision resolving domains.
EDNS buffer size of 1232 bytes will not cause fragmentation for an UDP
packet and that size corresponds to the first 94 most popular domain
names.  Of course more could be provided over TCP. Not saying that no
other mechanisms should be considered, I believe that could be sufficient
for many use cases without requiring an additional protocol (HTTP, FTP,
email).

Yours,
Daniel


[1] https://moz.com/top500





On Mon, Jul 27, 2020 at 3:00 PM Ben Schwartz <[e-mail]> wrote:

> On Mon, Jul 27, 2020 at 2:45 PM Daniel Migault <[e-mail]>
> wrote:
>
>>
>> a resolving domain list (rd_list.example.net) contains a list of
>> resolving domains. You get the different resolving domains
>> _b.rd_list.example.net PTR
>>
>
> This is the part of the draft that seems strangest to me (apart from the
> odd use of PTR).  It violates the usual expectation about data in the DNS:
> records published by a domain provide information about that domain.  These
> lists instead appear to provide information about the wider world.  The
> "owner name" just indicates whose opinion this is.
>
> If you want to present this type of information, I would encourage you to
> define a MIME type and distribute it using a general information transfer
> system like HTTP, FTP, or e-mail.  The concerns about size (since these
> lists could be arbitrarily large) are a hint that you're trying to store
> the wrong sort of data in the DNS.
>
> Alternatively, if these lists are really meant to be "resolvers to use on
> this network" or something like that, the text could be clearer about that,
> with an explanation of how the user would learn the owner name.
>


-- 
Daniel Migault
Ericsson