[9083] in North American Network Operators' Group
Re: eDNS - Temporary Freeze
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Paul A Vixie)
Sun May 4 17:10:20 1997
To: nanog@merit.edu, domain-policy@lists.internic.net
In-reply-to: Karl's message of "Sun, 04 May 1997 14:57:03 CDT."
<19970504145703.46553@Jupiter.Mcs.Net>
Date: Sun, 04 May 1997 13:50:48 -0700
From: Paul A Vixie <paul@vix.com>
> > What's so difficult to understand about what Paul said?
>
> You don't understand how DNS works.
I think he does.
> As long as the Internet's cache files on each and every system out there
> point at "a" in their file, there is the potential to break the namespace.
Heck, I guess that would be true of "F" as well. Shall I break the name
space? No? Why not? Is it because coherence has great value? OK, so how
shall we determine the synchronization signal for this coherence -- that is,
who can vary and who is required to follow? The answer is that the owner of
a zone can vary, and the publishers of a zone have to follow.
> One rogue server in a confederation will cause serious problems.
Which is why I expect that the current InterNIC contractor (NSI) will do
whatever the owners of its published but unowned zones (".", MIL, EDU, GOV)
tell them to do.
> NSI has defacto control, because getting them out of the cache files is a
> long and slow process, and until they ARE out their answers will be
> believed.
If NSI tried to become a DNS pirate, I expect that IANA would publish a new
"named.cache" file without NSI in it, and that the world would switch in a
week or less. Nobody likes DNS pirates -- or hadn't you noticed, Karl?