Subject: [newtrk] RE: Question about Obsoleted vs. Historic

From: <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 11 Jul 2005 13:22:44 +0300

Nick,

> The way I understand it, an RFC is only historic(al) if the technology it
> defines is no longer in use.

Well, as Iljitsch mail pointed out, some things (3152 Delegation of IP6.ARPA)
are moved to Historic when the IETF wants people to stop using them ...'

> An obsolete RFC means the technology is still being used, but some part of
> the specification (obsolete RFC) has been updated.  An obsolete RFC can
> still be a standard as the RFC that obsoletes it may not change the protocol
> at all.  One example of this is RFC 3912 which is the RFC that obsoletes
> your example (RFC 954) - read 3192's abstract for more detail.
> 
> This is of course only my understanding.

If only part has been updated, then the RFC doing the update should say 'Updates
RFC xyz', I think ...

John

.
newtrk resources:_____________________________________________________
web user interface: http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~llynch/newtrk.html
mhonarc archive: http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~llynch/newtrk/index.html

---

From: Iljitsch van Beijnum <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 11 Jul 2005 21:56:56 +0200

> are moved to Historic when the IETF wants people to stop using  

For the record:

RFC 3152 basically just says "we now use ip6.arpa rather than ip6.int  
for IPv6 reverse DNS" and points to RFC 2874.

RFC 2874 wants us to use bit labels for the reverse DNS (which is  
very cool but unfortunately isn't backward compatible and requires  
not just a new resource record but a partial rewrite of the software  
used in pretty much all DNS servers). RFC 2874 is "experimental" but  
that's just pretense, as there aren't currently, nor have there ever  
been any bitlabel delegations under ip6.arpa, as far as my research  
has been able to uncover.

(RFC 1886 specified the "nibble" format with ip6.int, which looks  
like d.e.a.d.b.e.a.f.1.0.0.2.ip6.int.)

So RFC 3152 was never "practice", the alleged practice isn't  
"current", and I'll refrain from commenting on "best".

RFC 3596 ("draft standard") finally cleans the whole mess up for the  
most part by saying in so many words that people should use the  
nibble method with ip6.arpa for the IPv6 reverse DNS, but  
unfortunately it claims that RFC 3152 was mainly about s/ip6.int/ 
ip6.arpa/g, ignoring the whole bitlabel/nibble thing.
.
newtrk resources:_____________________________________________________
web user interface: http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~llynch/newtrk.html
mhonarc archive: http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~llynch/newtrk/index.html