[DNSOP] SVCB and the specialness of _

Ben Schwartz <bemasc@google.com> Tue, 06 October 2020 23:52 UTC

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From: Ben Schwartz <bemasc@google.com>
Date: Tue, 06 Oct 2020 19:51:59 -0400
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Subject: [DNSOP] SVCB and the specialness of _
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Hi DNSOP,

There was recently an interesting proposal [1] for a change to the SVCB
draft that seems to merit input from the working group.

Background:
When using SVCB, clients append an underscore prefix ("Attrleaf") to the
name, containing the "scheme".  When there is an actual URI involved this
will literally be the URI scheme, e.g. _ftp.ftp.example.net.  Schemes can
prepend additional underscore-prefix labels to encode scheme-specific
service identifiers; the only anticipated use for this is a port number
(e.g. _8080._https.www.example.com).

SVCB also contains a small optimization: In ServiceMode, if the TargetName
is ".", this means "use the address records for the owner name".  This
reduces packet size (since name compression is not possible in new RR
types), but more importantly, it makes zone file editing easier and guides
zone owners toward the "happy path", where there is no latency penalty
because the resolver has already requested the corresponding address
records.

This construction works well for HTTPS on port 443, and for any lookup
following an AliasMode record, because in those cases the SVCB/HTTPS, A,
and AAAA queries all share the same QNAME.  However, it does not work when
the initial query has underscore labels and returns a ServiceMode record,
because the ServiceMode record's name is not the hostname (due to the
underscore labels).

Proposal:
The proposal would change the meaning of "." from "Use the SVCB record's
owner name" to "Use the SVCB record's owner name *minus any leading
underscore labels*".

Pro: TargetName = "." would now coincide with the "happy path" in all
ordinary cases.
* Simpler guidance to zone owners (always prefer ".")
* Clearer design rationale ("." is where the address queries already went)
* Shorter RDATA in the "happy path" case (for some non-HTTPS uses)

Con:
* Servers (recursive and authoritative) that perform Additional Section
processing would have to implement this underscore-label stripping
procedure.  This would be a rare violation of DNS's usual abstraction
barrier (servers don't normally discriminate based on the format of labels).
* There could be a change of operational control (e.g. zone cut or CNAME)
between _port._scheme.$HOSTNAME and $HOSTNAME, in which case the
ServiceMode record might actually prefer to use address records at its own
name, despite the latency cost.
* This gets very tricky if an AliasMode or CNAME target contains underscore
prefixes.  It may be impossible to stay on the "happy path" in all these
cases.

[1] https://github.com/MikeBishop/dns-alt-svc/issues/252