Subject: a new wild card can of worms

From: Edward Lewis <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 7 Feb 2005 11:31:57 -0500

Considering discussions on wildcards that have arisen in the context 
of "spam-reducing efforts involving the DNS" I think that perhaps 
something needs to be clarified in RFC 2782.

In RFC 2782 the SRV RR is defined.

# The format of the SRV RR
#
#    Here is the format of the SRV RR, whose DNS type code is 33:
#
#         _Service._Proto.Name TTL Class SRV Priority Weight Port Target

Note that the owner name is "_Service._Proto.Name"

Later this appears:

#   Name
#         The domain this RR refers to.  The SRV RR is unique in that the
#         name one searches for is not this name; the example near the end
#         shows this clearly.

Admittedly, the example referred to:

#   In this example, a client of the "foobar" service in the
#   "example.com." domain needs an SRV lookup of
#   "_foobar._tcp.example.com." and possibly A lookups of "new-fast-
#   box.example.com." and/or the other hosts named.  The size of the SRV
#   reply is approximately 365 bytes:

is correct and should clear things up, but still some folks have come 
to believe that "_foobar._tcp.*.example." would cover the foobar 
service over TCP on all unlisted "hosts."

IMHO, the start of the confusion  it the mixing of what the SRV 
document calls a "Name" and the use of domain names in wildcards. 
I'm thinking this as I re-edit text on (empty) non-terminal wildcards.

Should I try to add a "Wildcards and SRV" record section?  (As in the 
Wildcards and NS, CNAME, etc., that are already in the draft.)

-- 
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Edward Lewis                                                +1-571-434-5468
NeuStar

"A noble spirit embiggens the smallest man." - Jebediah Springfield

--
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: Edward Lewis <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 7 Feb 2005 13:40:19 -0500

At 18:28 +0100 2/7/05, Peter Koch wrote:

>RFC 2782 combines the syntax definition of the SRV RR type with the definition
>of a very particular use case. That's why the owner name is given structured

I think you've pointed out something important...mixing use case with 
definition.  (Like the WhoIs "spec" rewrite.)

>PS: And please don't forget the hint that *.example.com doesn't really
>     match "everything" below "example.com" :-)

Had to think about that one. Again. ;)
-- 
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Edward Lewis                                                +1-571-434-5468
NeuStar