Subject: half time report on wcard

From: Edward Lewis <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 28 Aug 2003 09:19:05 -0400

We're closing in on the half time of the last call on wcard clarify. 
(Yes, a bit early, but a long weekend is upcoming in my locale, and 
some folks are headed off to RIPE next week.)

So far I've seen three comments on this document.

1) A question about why the label begins with 0b01.

Apparently there's a mistake there (that I just caught).  A normal 
label (length) begins with 00, not 01.  Looking at RFC 1035, 4.1.4, 
it mentions 11 as being a compression pointer, 10 and 01 as being 
reserved.  I can't find where 00 is defined - which is what should be 
in wcard clarify.

"I just caught" - because I replied to the questioner with '01' is 
normal and he didn't balk.  Apparently I was wrong then, I did just 
notice the mistake.

2) A question about the phrase "spirit nor intent" - don't the two 
mean the same thing?

Spirit is mentioned because I'm trying to preserve, as much as I can, 
the flavor of 1034.  (That's why I cut and paste it's words so much.) 
Intent means that there are no protocol changes proposed up until the 
WG asked to modify "applying a wild card while chasing a CNAME." 
Even that change appears to fit the intent of the original document 
though.

3) A comment about "NXDOMAIN," RFC 2308, and the phrase "A QNAME and 
QCLASS matching an existing node never results in a response return 
code of authoritative name error."

I find that this comment is irrelevant to the document for a couple of reasons.

For one, RFC 2308 isn't even referenced by this document, so any 
discussion relating to it and whether or not there's a conflict 
between 2308 and 1034 is out of scope.

Secondly, the reason the sentence in question appears at all is to 
show how a changed definition of existence reads in the spirit of 
1034.  The sentence in question is verbatim from 1034 in a paragraph 
whose middle sentence has been altered.  The middle sentence is 
relevant for discussion, the last one (the one in question) is there 
to provide context (and the spirit).

In summary - if there is a discussion to be had here, this is the 
wrong last call to carry it out in.

So, at the half way point I need to make sure I have the right label 
type indicator.  Does anyone know where the label type of '00' is 
defined?  I can't locate it in 1035.

-- 
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Edward Lewis                                            +1-703-227-9854
ARIN Research Engineer

Sponge Bob Square Pants?  I'm still trying to figure out the Macarena.

--
to unsubscribe send a message to [email-masked] with
the word 'unsubscribe' in a single line as the message text body.
archive: <http://ops.ietf.org/lists/namedroppers/>

---

From: "Olaf M. Kolkman" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 28 Aug 2003 15:53:12 +0200

> defined?  I can't locate it in 1035.

Is this what you are looking for:

 1035 section 3.1 1st paragraph

 The high order two bits of every length octet must be zero, and the
 remaining six bits of the length field limit the label to 63 octets or
 less.

-- Olaf

---------------------------------| Olaf M. Kolkman
---------------------------------| RIPE NCC

---

From: Edward Lewis <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 28 Aug 2003 10:05:50 -0400

Yeah.  I thought/knew it was in there, but couldn't find the right 
grep to pull it up when I looked.

---

From: "Olaf M. Kolkman" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 28 Aug 2003 16:41:58 +0200

On Thu, 28 Aug 2003 09:19:05 -0400
Edward Lewis <[email-masked]> wrote:

(...)
> wrong last call to carry it out in.

 It is important to acknowledge that the critique on the draft was that
 the draft supposedly introduced incompatibility with other documents.
 The argument currently ongoing is whether or not that critique is
 correct and/or relevant, that discussion is IMHO still within scope of
 the last call. 

 However, unless new arguments are brought to the table the discussion
 on NXDOMAIN, RFC 2308 and incompatibilities is to be concluded. I
 propose that participants summarize their arguments on this matter and
 not further react on the mails on this particular subject.

 Please let us not repeat arguments ad-infinitum, remain courteous
 and try to focus on the document at hand.

 I would like to repeat the call to provide motivated support or
 opposition to the document or, if there is critique, provide motivation
 and alternative text.

 -- Olaf Kolkman
    DNSEXT Co-Chair.

---

From: "D. J. Bernstein" <[email-masked]>
Date: 28 Aug 2003 18:29:22 -0000

Olaf M. Kolkman writes:
> alternative text

The alternative to this particular RFC 2119 violation is to simply omit
the offending sentence from the document. Wildcards have exactly the
same semantics whether or not these NXDOMAINs are allowed.

Why did wcard-clarify stray into NXDOMAIN issues in the first place? Why
have we still not heard a clear statement of the scope of wcard-clarify?
I had assumed that this was a matter of poor communication, but now I'm
getting the feeling that the _authors_ don't have a clear idea of what
their document was supposed to cover.

---D. J. Bernstein, Associate Professor, Department of Mathematics,
Statistics, and Computer Science, University of Illinois at Chicago

---

From: [email-masked]
Date: Fri, 29 Aug 2003 11:03:09 +1000

> their document was supposed to cover.

	Wildcards are stopped by existing names.

	If you change what names exist you changes what queries
	match the wildcard.  So to clarify wildcards you also have
	to clarify what names exist.

	For the record it is RFC 2535 Section 5.1 that is problematical.

            "The presence of the NXT RR means that no name between its
   owner name and the name in its RDATA area exists and that no other
   types exist under its owner name."

	This fails to account for empty nodes in the tree.

--
Mark Andrews, Internet Software Consortium
1 Seymour St., Dundas Valley, NSW 2117, Australia
PHONE: +61 2 9871 4742                 INTERNET: [email-masked]

---

From: "D. J. Bernstein" <[email-masked]>
Date: 29 Aug 2003 15:41:29 -0000

[email-masked] writes:
> to clarify wildcards you also have to clarify what names exist

Wrong. There are dozens of ways to say

   A wildcard record *.Y applies to a query name X if (1) Y is not equal
   to X and (2) Y is the longest suffix of X for which there are records
   (of any type) whose domain names end with Y. Otherwise *.Y does not
   apply to X. Examples: ...

without giving a screwy definition of ``existence'' and without touching
the semantics of NXDOMAIN.