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From: Joe Abley <jabley@strandkip.nl>
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Date: Thu, 5 Mar 2026 11:22:19 +0000
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To: George Michaelson <ggm@algebras.org>
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CC: Paul Vixie <paul@redbarn.org>, Geoff Huston <gih902@gmail.com>,
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On 5 Mar 2026, at 00:24, George Michaelson <ggm@algebras.org> wrote:

> I have run local root. I don't see any problems with my service, running l=
ocal root.

I am not doubting your operational diligence George, but for many people I c=
an imagine persistent and enduring failures that will go unnoticed and the r=
esult will be new TLDs that are not universal or retired TLDs that persist. I=
f you don't use something and you don't measure it, how would you expect to s=
ee failures?

I appreciate that DNSSEC is there to save us from such problems, but softwar=
e has bugs and humans make mistakes and our goal ought to be to protect the n=
amespace expecting that those things are true, not trying to legislate that t=
hey must be false. We have certainly seen fixes to DNSSEC validation failure=
s of the form "turn off validation". Hope is not a strategy.=20

> I don't see the relevance of fetch mechanisms to success or failure here, o=
r the rate of churn in the root as a significant issue for a local root copy=
 mechanism.

Me neither. The data transfers are minuscule with or without incremental tra=
nsfers and I do not understand some of the strong opinions about data distri=
bution mechanisms unless they are anchored in not-invented-here.

However, to avoid the risk of sounding too much like I am in favour of all o=
f this, let us continue...

> I do accept that there are a cohort of people who have downside consequenc=
es of reduced traffic to the roots.

We have a root server system that is already quite hard to measure, an easy e=
xample of which was the extensive fear and loathing around the first KSK rol=
lover, but we manage to come up with plausible numbers for availability and s=
ystem health that are sufficient to convince us that the system is stable an=
d secure.=20

I don't know how we convince ourselves of such things if local-root becomes p=
revalent. Some are saying that this is a rare and niche local optimisation a=
nd prevalence is not expected, but I also hear that this is all fine because=
 we can trust the major implementations to do this safely and well. But if a=
ll the major implementations are doing this then it no longer seems rare and=
 niche; it seems like one default setting away from mainstream.=20

This all sounds like a solution looking for a problem to me. Unless the prob=
lem is actually "let's make the root server system unnecessary" I don't real=
ly know what this is all for; I don't see arguments for increased security, o=
bservability or stability.=20

I am not arguing against this work. I have concerns but I don't think it's a=
ctively harmful. Just because I think it smells funny doesn't mean others sh=
ouldn't enjoy its delicious and heady flavours.


Joe