Subject: [dnsext] making one zone/domain act like another

From: Edward Lewis <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 14 Dec 2009 16:07:58 -0500

Something thrown out for discussion...a topic that seems to have grown cold.

Following up on two things - the recent thread on changing the DNAME 
and the discussion of Yao Jiankang's draft presented at IETF 76 - 
there seems to be a desire to be able to make two zones "behave the 
same."

What does that mean?

Okay, before diving into that, what about just having two domains act 
the same.  That is a related desire - it means the top of the domain 
need not own an SOA (so it extends the question) and it means that 
the behavior transcends the zone boundary (hence it is more 
politically correct than saying "sameness in zone").

So, what does it mean for two domains "to act" the same?

Let's call the domain we want to be "the front" X and the domain to 
be "the back end" Y.

We want - for all non empty values of $label, the responses for

$label.X/class/type to be the same as $label.Y/class/type

We also want for some values of $type, the responses for

X/class/$type to be the same as Y/class/$type

E.g., Using a non-TLD and mixed-label-depth example, X = 
xn-12345.example. and Y = company1.myzone.tld.:
www.xn-12345.example./IN/A and www.company1.myzone.tld./IN/A
xn-12345.example./IN/MX and company1.myzone.tld./IN/MX

"Some values of $type" includes - the records supporting DNSSEC, the 
record supporting the query redirection, and what else?  SOA?  NS? 
Or maybe anything at X?

(I've written this with a mind towards the extension of DNAME 
proposed last week.  So in the latter list I did not include DNAME 
nor CNAME.  Otherwise we may have to include these depending on the 
interaction of another type with D/CNAME.)

What I didn't provide details on was "be the same as".  What I have 
in mind is - both responses have the same RDATA for the $type 
returned - and are just as "usable" - referring to restrictions on 
when a target can't be a "CNAME".

E.g.,
www.xn-12345.example./IN/A

www.xn-12345.example.    IN  CNAME www.company1.myzone.tld.
www.company1.myzone.tld. IN  A     192.0.2.34

and

www.company1.myzone.tld. IN  A     192.0.2.34

Are "the same as" each other.
-- 
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Edward Lewis
NeuStar                    You can leave a voice message at +1-571-434-5468

As with IPv6, the problem with the deployment of frictionless surfaces is
that they're not getting traction.

---

From: Eric Brunner-Williams <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 14 Dec 2009 17:37:12 -0500

Ed,

I like that you're removing the "zone mirroring" constraint and 
looking at the general issue of similarity.

Eric