[DNSOP] Re: [Ext] on the more general problem of delegating to other namespaces in the DNS

[Joe Abley <[e-mail]>]

On 17 Jun 2025, at 20:05, Paul Hoffman <[e-mail]> wrote:

> On Jun 17, 2025, at 10:54, Joe Abley <[e-mail]> wrote:
>> Using "." to mean "not available" has some history and it feels nice not to deviate;
> 
> I would generally agree, but in this case noname (".") has a particular meaning in the DNS that it doesn't in, for example MX records. Thus my concern.

Well, an MX target is a hostname to which packets are sent; an NS target is a hostname to which packets are sent. So I'm not sure the situations are so different. 

In both cases a client that for some reason thinks the empty string is a valid hostname might try to resolve it. Such resolution will look for a root zone apex A or AAAA record. There isn't one; the cacheable NODATA responses from the root servers should confirm that to be the case.

I agree that software is riddled with crazy nonsense and nothing is impossible, but what I would expect to see is either nothing much or increased volumes of ./IN/A and ./IN/AAAA at the root servers. 

The root servers are well-provisioned to be able to handle junk, which is good because junk is mainly what they receive. But yes, science seems appropriate. 


Joe