[158930] in North American Network Operators' Group
=?windows-1252?Q?Re=3A_Advisory_=97_D-root_is_changing_its_IPv4_?=
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (David Conrad)
Sat Dec 15 21:26:29 2012
From: David Conrad <drc@virtualized.org>
In-Reply-To: <50CD19AC.7060708@foobar.org>
Date: Sat, 15 Dec 2012 18:26:14 -0800
To: Nick Hilliard <nick@foobar.org>
Cc: "nanog@nanog.org Group" <nanog@nanog.org>
Errors-To: nanog-bounces+nanog.discuss=bloom-picayune.mit.edu@nanog.org
Nick,
On Dec 15, 2012, at 4:45 PM, Nick Hilliard <nick@foobar.org> wrote:
> On 15/12/2012 23:07, David Conrad wrote:
>> The handwringing over this issue is a bit over the top.
> It's a question of what's procedurally sensible. Sensible things would
> include longer notice of the impending change to the root zone,
Given reality and the way root priming works, 3 weeks notice and 6 =
months of continued service seems sensible to me.
> more widespread notice of what's happening
I gather recursive server implementations provide a warning message =
telling folks that the IP address has changed. That seems like a more =
useful notification methodology than sending email to a few (or even =
many) mailing lists.
> and generally not poking around with
> really important bits of the Internet at times which are well known =
for
> having configuration freezes and/or when many people are going to be =
on
> holidays. =20
It simply doesn't matter if folks refuse to make a change during the =
holidays. The worst case scenario is they'll get a warning message in =
their recursive server log files. Presumably, the folks who look at =
those log files will be able to understand what it means. They have 6 =
months after the change occurs to update their root hints. Even if they =
don't, this particular change will only affect people 1/13th of the time =
their name servers reprime and will do so in a way that is wildly =
unlikely to even be noticed.
> This change wasn't planned over a coffee last thursday morning. It's
> obviously been on the cards for several years, so asking for more =
carefully
> structured notice in a procedurally sensible sort of way isn't an
> unreasonable thing to expect as part of the migration plan.
You seem to be a bit confused about roles and prerogatives here.
The UMD folks are making a change to _their_ infrastructure. They have =
sent out a notice in advance of that change to folks who might be =
interested. They were under absolutely no obligation to do so. There is =
no contractual or service level agreement between UMD and _anyone_ that =
requires them to do _anything_ with regards to root service. The fact =
that they gave 3 weeks notice that they were changing the IP addresses =
of their server shows they are nice folks. Neither you nor anyone else =
that uses "D" has any right to dictate how UMD operates their =
infrastructure, how much notice to give when making changes to that =
infrastructure, who gets notified, etc.=20
Welcome to the wonderful wacky world of volunteer root service!
With that said, I would argue it should be the responsibility of the =
maintainers of the root hints to notify software vendors, recursive =
operators, etc. of a change since the maintainer of the root hints file =
has vetted/implemented the change. It is also more likely that the =
world has at least heard of the maintainers of the root hints than some =
random person posting unsigned messages from a University (no offense =
Jason :-)).
Regards,
-drc
