ADMD IMX document - comments

[Allan Cargille <[e-mail]>]

Hi x400ops folk,

Some comments to Stef's revised IMX draft.  I have retained only
related portions of the text below.  My comments are marked with >>>.

Cheers

allan

======================================================================
OSI-X400ops Working Group        				 E. Stefferud
INTERNET DRAFT: A=IMX        	          Network Management Associates, Inc.
draft-ietf-x400ops-admd-03.txt        			         October 1993

        		     C=US; A=IMX
        	      (Expires: January 26 1993)

>>> Need to change expiration date

Status Of this Memo
 
   This document provides information for the Internet community.  
   It does not specify an Internet standard.  Distribution of this 
   memo is unlimited. 

Abstract

  This document establishes an Internet Based X.400 Administrative
  Management Domain (ADMD) with the name "A=IMX", for use in the
  United States of America (C=US), according to the applicable rules
  of CCITT Recommendations and ISO Standards, and in keeping with
  existing regulatory practices in the United States of America.  It

>>> Not sure we want to claim to meet all CCITT Recommendations,
ISO standards, and regulatory practices for ADMDs.  We plan to
establish a virtual ADMD, which may not meet some of the said
recommendations.  (The F.400 series for ADMDs, for example.)  This
document is restricted to naming and ADMD name registration.  I think
that we should say that operational issues are outside the scope of
this document and need to be addressed in a related future document.

  also establishes a naming authority under the Internet Assigned
  Numbers Authority (IANA) to register and openly publish Private
  Management Domain (PRMD) names subordinate to A=IMX under C=US.

  The name "IMX is registered with the American National Standards
>>>  typo? ^^^^ "IMX"
  Institute (ANSI) MHS Management Domain (MHSMD) register as is
  appropriate for names that are to be used as ADMD names in the
  United States of America (c=US).

....

  DNS names are limited to 64 characters of US-ASCII letters (A-Z),
  digits (0-9), hyphen (-) and dot (.), with dot restricted to use as
  a constructive delimiter between concatenated names from ascending
  DNS levels.  Case is non-distinguishing for purposes of matching.
  Embedded white space is not allowed.  Leading and trailing white
  space is ignored for purposes of matching.

>>> Don't DNS names have to start with a letter, not a digit?

4.  Name of the C=US Internet ADMD

  The name of the C=US Internet ADMD is "IMX".

5.  PRMD Names in C=US; A=IMX

  PRMD Name Registration is accomplished by overt application to the
  IANA registration agent by the registrant.  A registration form will
  be supplied by the IANA registration agent.  All IANA registered
  PRMD names will be openly published by the IANA for public access.

>>> Can we specify that there is no charge for registration?
Otherwise, we should say that registration procedures need to be
specified but that minimal charges are intended.



6.  Sources of PRMD Registered Names

  PRMD names registered by the IANA under A=IMX are drawn from:

        (1) DNS names already registered in the DNS naming tree, which
            do not exceed the X.400 limit of 16 characters, or

*       (2) any other name that is guaranteed not to conflict with
*           any other IANA registered PRMD name under C=US; A=IMX,
*           or any current or possible future DNS name.
*         
*
* Examples of (1) are:
*
*    P=nma.com; P=uci.edu; P=nic.ddn.mil; P=nsf.gov; P=sintef.no

>>> See comments below.  I am marking other relevant sections with
leading '*' characters as well.

....

  The key requirement is that a PRMD name must be an unambiguous
  string of permitted characters uniquely registered to a single owner
  under the registering ADMD, so any existing DNS name with 16 or
  fewer characters under any DNS top level domain may be used as a
  PRMD name in C=US; A=IMX because all such DNS names are already
  unambiguous and uniquely assigned to registrants by the IANA in the
  Internet DNS, and they only contain allowed characters.
>>>                                   ^^^^^^^ prefer "legal" or "valid"
....

* Examples of (2) are:
*
*     P=ESnet;  P=NASA;  P=Boeing Seattle;  P=XYZZY;  P=CALTRANS
*
* All such names must not conflict with any possible current or future
* DNS name that may or may not ever be registered.

7.  Proscribed PRMD Names

  The following PRMD Names are proscribed, in accordance with the
  rules given in Section 6 above:

  (1) Any PRMD name that is also registered in the DNS, unless it is
      registered in the DNS by the same registration applicant.

* (2) Any PRMD name that ends in a dot (.) followed by any number of
*     characters of the kind allowed in DNS top-level domain names,
*     unless also registered in the DNS by the same registration
*     applicant.

>>> There is still a hole in the effort to avoid constraining the DNS
name space in the future.  Look at section 7, number (2) immediately
above.  It rules out all PRMD names that end with a dot character
followed by other valid domain-name characters.  That's fine.  The
hole comes with the examples of section 6, number (2) above.  In that
paragraph, the following are listed as legal PRMD names:

>>> P=ESnet;  P=NASA;  P=Boeing Seattle;  P=XYZZY;  P=CALTRANS

>>> As an artifact of the way the DNS works, registering a PRMD name
of "ZZ" is equivalent to also reserving the top-level domain ".ZZ" --
or at least that's how it appears to me.  Am I wrong?  Or do we need
to think about this some more?  In other words, by registering the
above PRMD names, it appears to me that we are also reserving the
top-level domain name spaces of ".esnet" , ".nasa" , ".xyzzy" , and
".caltrans" .  Note that "Boeing Seattle" does not cause this problem
because it contains an illegal domain-name character (space).

>>> One solution would be to decide that every PRMD name registered
must contain a character which is invalid as a domain name:  space,
apostrophe, parentheses, plus sign, comma, slash (/), colon, equals
sign, or question mark.  I don't like that solution.

>>> Another possibility is to assert that PRMD names which would be
valid DNS names must be longer than a certain number of characters,
say five or more.

>>> Another possibility is to determine that what I think is a problem
is not actually a problem, and that registering PRMD "top" is not
really equivalent to reserving ".top" .

....

Appendix: Discussion of ADMD name value chosen for C=US portion of the
          global Internet

  NOTE: If and when this RFC is published as an Informational or
        Experimental
 RFC, this Appendix may be removed
>>>  a control-A ^^^^^^ char snuck in up above here.

....

  <Single-Space> is not available for Internet ADMD Name use in C=US,
  in that it is reserved by the [CCITT X.400 | ISO MOTIS]
  [Recommendations | Standards] for the name of a virtual ADMD that is
  to be approved by some National Body in C=US.  This issue is of no
  concern to the IETF, IAB, or ISOC as long as we do not attempt to
  use the proscribed name.

>>> I suggest that we strike or rewrite the above paragraph.  Why even
mention single space at all?  I do not want to antagonize the US NMTS
work, and it is possible that ADMD IMX will want to participate in the
US NMTS in the future.  (The US NMTS is the group implementing
ADMD=<space> in the US.)

  We should not seek approval of any C=US National Body in the
>>> ^^^^^^^^^^^
>>> Let's rephrase as "It is not necessary to seek..."
  establishment of an Internet ADMD in C=US.  No other C=US ADMD has
  sought nor obtained any such approval, and thus the precedent has
  been set for the C=US Internet community to self assert ADMD status.

======================================================================

>>> I would also like to see us add a note to the document which says
something like, "Recommendations for forming PRMD names are outside the
scope of this document.  Such recommendations may be for future work."