Subject: Type Code 31

From: Edward Lewis <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 25 Mar 2005 11:09:03 -0500

This isn't really about type code 31, but about the type codes 
allocated by IANA that are not defined in persistent documents.

Recently I was asked to look at 
http://www.iana.org/assignments/dns-parameters, to find better 
references for things like:

# EID             31 Endpoint Identifier                    [Patton]
# NIMLOC          32 Nimrod Locator                         [Patton]
...
# [Patton] Michael Patton, <[email-masked]>, June 1995.

Now, Mike's a good guy and all and he doesn't deserve to be a walking 
encylopedia of stuff no one uses.  I was able to find a document 
covering these types here: 
http://ana-3.lcs.mit.edu/~jnc/nimrod/dns.txt.  This is not in a place 
that IANA can count on to hold this forever, nor the IETF.

Another example along these lines is:
# SINK            40 SINK                          [Eastlake]
...
# [Eastlake] Donald E. Eastlake, III <[email-masked]>, January 1995,
#          November 1997.

It's last known address is this, another non-IETF/IANA provided site:

http://bgp.potaroo.net/ietf/all-ids/draft-eastlake-kitchen-sink-02.txt

You search the mail archives you can find that it was killed about 
the time of WG last call.

The problem is - we need to have persistent definitions of types 
*actively* allocated by IANA available to implementers.  (Relying on 
looking at the BIND code notwithstanding.)

For types that are not in use, we should document that.  At the time 
SINK was killed, there ought to have been an action to un-register 
the type, or at least mark it as obsolete.  We don't need to revive a 
definition of the SINK to kill it, just a note to IANA to mark it as 
obsolete (like type 3) or return the code  to the available pool.

RFC 2929 does not cover "garbage collection," maybe it should.

Maybe we just need a document to cut out all the obsoleted types from IANA.

Comments on this?

PS - I'd do more, but I should be working on wcard.
-- 
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Edward Lewis                                                +1-571-434-5468
NeuStar

Achieving total enlightenment has taught me that ignorance is bliss.

--
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/>