Subject: wrong file name, late by a day, but here it as promised: respsize.txt

From: Paul Vixie <[email-masked]>
Date: 25 Feb 2003 00:48:33 +0000

Independent                                       Paul Vixie, ISC (Ed.)
   Request for Comments: XXXX                             Akira Kato, WIDE
   Category: FYI                                         February 23, 2003

                           DNS Response Size Issues

   Status of this Memo

      This memo describes the general issues surrounding DNS response
      sizes, with special attention to delegation responses containing
      numerous NS RRs.  It does not specify an Internet standard of any
      kind.  Distribution of this memo is unlimited.

   Copyright Notice

      Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2003).  All Rights Reserved.

   Abstract

      With a mandated default minimum maximum of 512 octets, the DNS
      protocol presents some special problems for zones wishing to
      advertise moderate or high numbers of authority servers (NS RRs).
      This document explains the operational issues caused by or related to
      this response size limit.

   1 - Introduction and Overview

   1.1. The DNS standard (see [RFC1035 4.2.1]) limits message size to 512
   octets.  Even though this limitation was due to the required minimum UDP
   reassembly limit for IPv4, it is a hard DNS protocol limit and is not
   implicitly relaxed by changes in transport, for example to IPv6.

   1.2. The EDNS0 standard (see [RFC2671 2.3, 4.5]) permits larger
   responses by mutual agreement of the requestor and responder.  However,
   deployment of EDNS0 cannot be expected to reach every Internet resolver
   in the short or medium term.  The 512 octet assumption must remain in
   effect at this time.

   1.3. Since DNS responses include a copy of the request, the space
   available for response data is somewhat less than the full 512 octets.
   For negative or positive responses, there is rarely a space constraint.
   For delegation responses, though, every octet must be carefully and
   sparingly allocated.

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   RFC XXXX                    DNS Response Size          February 23, 2003

   2 - Delegation Details

   2.1. A delegation response will include the following elements:

      Header Section: fixed length (12 octets)
      Question Section: original query (name, class, type)
      Answer Section: (empty)
      Authority Section: NS RRset (nameserver names)
      Additional Section: A and AAAA RRsets (nameserver addresses)

   2.2. If the total response size would exceed 512 octets, and if the data
   that would not fit was in the question, answer, or authority section,
   then the TC bit will be set (indicating truncation) which may cause the
   requestor to retry using TCP, depending on what information was present
   and what was omitted.  If a retry using TCP is needed, the total cost to
   the requestor goes up.

   2.3. RRsets are never sent partially, so if truncation occurs, entire
   RRsets are omitted.  Note that the authority section consists of a
   single RRset.  It is absolutely essential that truncation not occur in
   the authority section.

   2.4. DNS label compression allows a domain name label to be instantiated
   only once per DNS message, and then referenced with a two-octet
   "pointer" from other locations in that same DNS message.  If all
   nameserver names in a message are similar (for example, all ending in
   ".ROOT-SERVERS.NET"), then more space will be left over for
   uncompressable data (such as nameserver addresses).

   2.5. The query name can be as long as 255 characters of presentation
   data, which can be up to 256 octets of network data.  In this worst case
   scenario, the question section will be 260 octets in size, which would
   leave only 240 octets for the authority and additional sections (after
   deducting 12 octets for the fixed length header.)

   2.6. Average and maximum question section sizes can be predicted by the
   zone owner, since they will know what names actually exist, and can
   measure which ones are queried for most often.  For performance reasons,
   the majority of requests should not cause truncation.

   2.7. Requestors who deliberately send large queries to force truncation
   are only increasing their own costs, and cannot effectively attack the
   resources of an authority server since the requestor would have to retry
   using TCP to complete the attack.  An attack that always used TCP would
   be less work.

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   RFC XXXX                    DNS Response Size          February 23, 2003

   2.8. The minimum useful glue is two address records.  (With only one
   address, the probability is too high that it will refer to an
   unreachable server.)  Truncation which occurs after two address records
   have been added to the additional data section is less operationally
   significant than truncation which occurs earlier.

   2.9. The best case is no truncation.  (This is because many requestors
   will retry using TCP by reflex, without considering whether the omitted
   data was actually necessary.)

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   RFC XXXX                    DNS Response Size          February 23, 2003

   3 - Analysis

   3.1. An instrumented protocol trace of a best case delegation response
   follows.  Note that 13 servers are named, and 13 addresses are given.
   This query was artificially designed to exactly reach the 512 octet
   limit.

      ;; flags: qr rd; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 0, AUTHORITY: 13, ADDITIONAL: 13
      ;; QUERY SECTION:
      ;;  [23456789.123456789.123456789.\
           123456789.123456789.123456789.com A IN]        ;; @80

      ;; AUTHORITY SECTION:
      com.                 86400 NS  E.GTLD-SERVERS.NET.  ;; @112
      com.                 86400 NS  F.GTLD-SERVERS.NET.  ;; @128
      com.                 86400 NS  G.GTLD-SERVERS.NET.  ;; @144
      com.                 86400 NS  H.GTLD-SERVERS.NET.  ;; @160
      com.                 86400 NS  I.GTLD-SERVERS.NET.  ;; @176
      com.                 86400 NS  J.GTLD-SERVERS.NET.  ;; @192
      com.                 86400 NS  K.GTLD-SERVERS.NET.  ;; @208
      com.                 86400 NS  L.GTLD-SERVERS.NET.  ;; @224
      com.                 86400 NS  M.GTLD-SERVERS.NET.  ;; @240
      com.                 86400 NS  A.GTLD-SERVERS.NET.  ;; @256
      com.                 86400 NS  B.GTLD-SERVERS.NET.  ;; @272
      com.                 86400 NS  C.GTLD-SERVERS.NET.  ;; @288
      com.                 86400 NS  D.GTLD-SERVERS.NET.  ;; @304

      ;; ADDITIONAL SECTION:
      A.GTLD-SERVERS.NET.  86400 A   192.5.6.30           ;; @320
      B.GTLD-SERVERS.NET.  86400 A   192.33.14.30         ;; @336
      C.GTLD-SERVERS.NET.  86400 A   192.26.92.30         ;; @352
      D.GTLD-SERVERS.NET.  86400 A   192.31.80.30         ;; @368
      E.GTLD-SERVERS.NET.  86400 A   192.12.94.30         ;; @384
      F.GTLD-SERVERS.NET.  86400 A   192.35.51.30         ;; @400
      G.GTLD-SERVERS.NET.  86400 A   192.42.93.30         ;; @416
      H.GTLD-SERVERS.NET.  86400 A   192.54.112.30        ;; @432
      I.GTLD-SERVERS.NET.  86400 A   192.43.172.30        ;; @448
      J.GTLD-SERVERS.NET.  86400 A   192.48.79.30         ;; @464
      K.GTLD-SERVERS.NET.  86400 A   192.52.178.30        ;; @480
      L.GTLD-SERVERS.NET.  86400 A   192.41.162.30        ;; @496
      M.GTLD-SERVERS.NET.  86400 A   192.55.83.30         ;; @512

      ;; MSG SIZE  sent: 80  rcvd: 512

   Vixie & Kato                       FYI                          [Page 4]

   RFC XXXX                    DNS Response Size          February 23, 2003

   3.2. For longer query names, the number of address records supplied will
   be lower.  Furthermore, it is only by using a common parent name (which
   is GTLD-SERVERS.NET in this example) that all 13 addresses are able to
   fit.  The following output from a response simulator demonstrates these
   properties:

      % perl respsize.pl 13 13 0
        common name, average case: msg:303    glue#13 (green)
        common name,   worst case: msg:495    glue# 1 (red)
      uncommon name, average case: msg:457    glue# 3 (orange)
      uncommon name,   worst case: msg:649(*) glue# 0 (red)
      % perl respsize.pl 13 13 2
        common name, average case: msg:303    glue#11 (orange)
        common name,   worst case: msg:495    glue# 1 (red)
      uncommon name, average case: msg:457    glue# 2 (orange)
      uncommon name,   worst case: msg:649(*) glue# 0 (red)

   (Note: The response simulator's source code is contained in the
   appendix.)

   Here we give the term "green" if all address records could fit, or
   "orange" if two or more could fit, or "red" if fewer than two could fit.
   It's clear that without a common parent for nameserver names, much space
   would be lost.

   4 - Further Work

   4.1. Traces from one or more root name servers and at least a dozen
   diverse TLD name servers should be analyzed to measure the actual
   minimum, maximum, average, and standard deviation in query name sizes.

   4.2. Current delegation response sizes from the root server system for
   all TLDs should be measured in light of the known query name sizes found
   to be in use.

   4.3. A policy should be created for the addition of AAAA RR's for
   existing name servers, in both TLD delegations under the root zone, and
   SLD delegations under interested TLDs.

   4.4. Participants in the Internationalized Domain Names (IDN) effort
   should take careful note of the performance effects of larger query
   names on root name server system delegation sizes.

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   RFC XXXX                    DNS Response Size          February 23, 2003

   5 - Source Code

   #!/usr/bin/perl -w

   $asize = 2+2+2+4+2+4;
   $aaaasize = 2+2+2+4+2+16;
   ($nns, $na, $naaaa) = @ARGV;
   test("common", "average", common_name_average($nns), $na, $naaaa);
   test("common", "worst", common_name_worst($nns), $na, $naaaa);
   test("uncommon", "average", uncommon_name_average($nns), $na, $naaaa);
   test("uncommon", "worst", uncommon_name_worst($nns), $na, $naaaa);
   exit 0;

   sub test { my ($namekind, $casekind, $msg, $na, $naaaa) = @_;
        my $nglue = numglue($msg, $na, $naaaa);
        printf "%8s name, %7s case: msg:%3d%s glue#%2d (%s)\n",
             $namekind, $casekind,
             $msg, ($msg > 512) ? "(*)" : "   ",
             $nglue, ($nglue == $na + $naaaa) ? "green"
                  : ($nglue >= 2) ? "orange"
                       : "red";
   }

   sub pnum { my ($num, $tot) = @_;
        return sprintf "%3d%s",
   }

   sub numglue { my ($msg, $na, $naaaa) = @_;
        my $space = ($msg > 512) ? 0 : (512 - $msg);
        my $num = 0;

        while ($space && ($na || $naaaa )) {
             if ($na) {
                  if ($space >= $asize) {
                       $space -= $asize;
                       $num++;
                  }
                  $na--;
             }
             if ($naaaa) {
                  if ($space >= $aaaasize) {
                       $space -= $aaaasize;
                       $num++;
                  }
                  $naaaa--;

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   RFC XXXX                    DNS Response Size          February 23, 2003

             }
        }
        return $num;
   }

   sub msgsize { my ($qname, $nns, $nsns) = @_;
        return    12 +                            # header
                $qname+2+2 +                    # query
                0 +                             # answer
                $nns * (4+2+2+4+2+$nsns);       # authority
   }

   sub average_case { my ($nns, $nsns) = @_;
        return msgsize(64, $nns, $nsns);
   }

   sub worst_case { my ($nns, $nsns) = @_;
        return msgsize(256, $nns, $nsns);
   }

   sub common_name_average { my ($nns) = @_;
        return 15 + average_case($nns, 2);
   }

   sub common_name_worst { my ($nns) = @_;
        return 15 + worst_case($nns, 2);
   }

   sub uncommon_name_average { my ($nns) = @_;
        return average_case($nns, 15);
   }

   sub uncommon_name_worst { my ($nns) = @_;
        return worst_case($nns, 15);
   }

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   RFC XXXX                    DNS Response Size          February 23, 2003

   5 - Author's Address

   Paul Vixie
      950 Charter Street
      Redwood City, CA 94063
      +1 650 779 7000
      [email-masked]

   Akira Kato
      University of Tokyo, Information Technology Center
      2-11-16 Yayoi Bunkyo
      Tokyo 113-8658, JAPAN
      +81 3 5841 2750
      [email-masked]

   Vixie & Kato                       FYI                          [Page 8]

-- 
Paul Vixie

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---

From: Brad Knowles <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 26 Feb 2003 14:36:35 +0100

>        this response size limit.

	Hmm.  Back in '97 (I think), there was a draft that was created 
on pretty much the same topic.  This was right after the 19-hour 
downtime at AOL, and where much of the Internet was unable to send 
e-mail because we were advertising too many MXes (45?), and combined 
with the two minute TCP timeout and typical queue runner startup 
times (every sixty minutes), many sites would stack up queue runners 
until they ran out of memory (real & virtual) and the server would 
crash.  These queue runners would get a timeout on each of the 
advertised MXes, and not be able to process any other mail while 
sitting and spinning their wheels.

	However, that draft ultimately died.  Both qmail and postfix 
should avoid excessive problems of this sort, and intelligent 
installations of sendmail should avoid problems of this sort, but I'm 
sure that there are plenty of sites out there that are still 
vulnerable to this sort of thing.

	Would it be possible to incorporate some analysis and 
recommendations on this issue in future versions of this draft?

-- 
Brad Knowles, <[email-masked]>

"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
     -Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania.

GCS/IT d+(-) s:+(++)>: a C++(+++)$ UMBSHI++++$ P+>++ L+ !E-(---) W+++(--) N+
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---

From: "D. J. Bernstein" <[email-masked]>
Date: 28 Feb 2003 21:23:40 -0000

Paul Vixie writes:
> Furthermore, it is only by using a common parent name (which is
> GTLD-SERVERS.NET in this example) that all 13 addresses are able to fit.

Of course, there's quite a bit of extra space in the 512-byte packet---
enough for more than 20 IP addresses overall---if you reduce the number
of _server_ names.

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