Subject: EDNS0, was Re: Advancing AAAA to Full standard ?

From: Edward Lewis <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 16 Nov 2005 09:57:30 -0500

At 12:08 +1100 11/16/05, Mark Andrews wrote:

>	EDNS is basically a non-issue these days.  +70% of the
>	worlds nameservers talk EDNS.  Of the others the majority
>	are RFC 1034 / RFC 1035 compliant and send a error code.

With almost 1 out of 3 not talking EDNS0, I'd say it's an issue. ;) 
(Funny how you can twist statistics - IOW "if your two neighbors are 
speaking EDNS0, you are probably not.")

But perhaps not an issue in the way you mean.

>	There really is only a handful of servers that get this
>	wrong these days though one major vendor decided to implement
>	a 60 second holddown on sending error responses.
>
>	The problem is with middleware that drops packets they can't
>	completely decode.  Note: most middleware now handles EDNS
>	though some boxes block EDNS w/ DO set.

Well, moving EDNS0 (or rather the RFC that documents it) from 
Proposed to Draft (and then Full) won't wreck the world of code. 
Moving along the standards track on one hand is just an IETF 
procedural matter, and on the other hand is just an IETF procedural 
matter.

Being a procedural matter, it doesn't change reality.  It's good for 
the WG to begin to exercise this process, to give some weight to the 
work that has been done over the past decade.  This is all about 
formally documenting what we've done, something a mature organization 
does.

On the other hand, being a procedural matter, it's only as important 
as the weight given to the procedures.  A lot of the IETF standards 
consuming world confuses RFC with standard (the IETF editor not 
highlighting the STD track on their home page isn't helping in this 
regard).  Moreover, the difference between Proposed, Draft, and Full 
are not clear.  Yes, they matter to the believers of the IETF, but 
the IETF apparently hasn't sold the consumers on the importance of 
the process.  At least not well enough.

One other thing I'll add.  The thread started out on AAAA advancement 
to Full.  Now we've spread to EDNS0.  At some point the chairs ought 
to step back in and scope and time the work before we become a 
classroom full of unruly students wanting to reinvent everything all 
at once.

So, let's focus on advancing one thing and publicizing the importance 
of the process, the reason for expending more resources to redocument 
what's already been done in both an RFC and in code.

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

3 months to the next trip.  I guess it's finally time to settle down and
find a grocery store.

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