Re: [DNSOP] Clarifying referrals (#35)

[Andrew Sullivan <[e-mail]>]

Dear colleagues,

Joe Abley and I have just submitted a draft
(https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-sullivan-dnsop-refer-down/)
that is intended to capture the discussion here about referrals and
how to describe them.  It is intended for BCP, and it discourages
upward referrals by authoritative servers.

That leaves the task of the referrals definition.  I have some new
text below:

---%<---cut here---

Referral: A type of response in which a server, signalling that it is
not authoritative for an answer, provides the querying resolver with
an alternative place to send its query.  A referral contains an empty
answer section.  It contains the NS RRset for the referred-to zone in
the authority section.  It may contain RRs that provide addresses in
the additional section.  The AA bit is clear.

There are two types of referral response.  The first is a downward
referral (sometimes described as "delegation response"), where the
server is authoritative for some portion of the QNAME.  The Authority
section RRset's RDATA contains the name servers specified at the
referred-to zone cut.  In normal DNS operation, this kind of response
is required in order to find names beneath a delegation.

The second is an upward referral (sometimes described as "root
referral" or just "referral response", as distinct from the delegation
response above), where the server is not authoritative for any portion
of the QNAME.  When this happens, the referred-to zone in the
Authority section is usually the root zone (.).  In normal DNS
operation, this kind of response is not strictly speaking required to
work, and in practice some authoritative server operators will not
return referral responses beyond those required for delegation.

[optional: see draft-sullivan-dnsop-refer-down-00 or whatever.  We'll
only include this reference if the other draft reaches WG consensus
before terminology-bis]

---cut here--->%---

Comments, please.  Also, Joe and I solicit comments on the referrals
draft proper, but it would be nice to put that in a different thread.

Best regards,

A

-- 
Andrew Sullivan
[e-mail]