Re: [mif] [dnsext] [DNSOP] 2nd Last Call for MIF DNS server selection document

[Lawrence Conroy <[e-mail]>]

Hi there Doug, Keith, folks,
 Speaking of broken mechanisms ... how many dots?
arstechnica.com is OK
      co.uk is not OK

ndots strikes me as a chocolate soldier in the fire used to warm the chocolate teapot that is search lists.

At best these are context dependent (and keep IT support in business). At worst ...
 one day I WILL be arrested for tazering the bean counter (why is it always one of
 those?) who insists that "intranet" is a fine web server name useful anywhere.

[I came damn close a few times with Yankee hotel reservations accessible only via
 1-800 'phone numbers]

Speaking of interoperability -- the comment "it works for everyone here" is not
 a good sign that the solution is interoperable.

IMO, search lists and ndots are both abominations, and should not be given the oxygen of publicity.

all the best,
  Lawrence



On 24 Oct 2011, at 21:52, Doug Barton wrote:
> On 10/24/2011 05:16, Keith Moore wrote:
>> That's the point - search lists are not appropriate most of the time, and it's very hard for software to distinguish the cases where they are potentially appropriate from the cases when they're not, and it's not possible for software to do this in all cases.
> 
> There's been something missing from this discussion, and I finally put
> my finger on it. TMK most stub resolvers have an option similar to this
> one from ISC's:
> 
> ndots:n
>        sets a threshold for the number of dots which
>        must appear in a name given to res_query() (see
>        resolver(3)) before an initial absolute query
>        will be made.  The default for n is “1”, mean‐
>        ing that if there are any dots in a name, the
>        name will be tried first as an absolute name
>        before any search list elements are appended to
>        it.
> 
> So it seems that this question is already a matter of local policy,
> which given the number and quality of the divergent views seems
> eminently reasonable. Can we move on now?