Re: 2nd Root Server in Europe (fwd)

[Jim Dixon <]

On Mon, 13 Jan 1997, Peter Lothberg wrote:

> This is was was discussed at the IEPG meeting, and the concensus was
> that "common resources" should be attached to public exchange points
> trough a dedicated router in a neutral way.
> 
> Shared resources has to bee keept as neutral as possible, and having
> for example a root-name-server behind it's own router attached to a well
> recogized public exchange point seems to be the best avaliable
> implementation today.

This is in fact exactly the physical arrangement that we have proposed: 
a root name server on its own class C one hop off the LINX.  

And the UK Internet Service Providers Asssociation (http://www.ispa.org) 
is as neutral an organisation as the LINX -- in fact arguably more so.  
ISPA draws its membership from the entire UK Internet community, 
whereas LINX's membership rules are quite restrictive.

This should not be overemphasized; there is a considerable overlap in
membership between the two organisations.  Like many other networks,
VBCnet belongs to both.

> Thus all ISP's present at that echange point could peer, regardless of
> their peering policies to other ISP's and as there is no other service
> than the nameserver is behind that router, and I'm sure all of them 
> (the ISP's peering) will give transit for the prefix used by the 
> nameserver to other parts of the network.

We agree with this entirely.  To repeat what may not be clear to those
added to the lengthening CC: list, some time ago, after securing the
endorsement of the UK ISPA, VBCnet approached IANA on behalf of ISPA
with an offer to provide and manage a root name server at the LINX.  
We sent an engineer to California to discuss this with Paul Vixie,
who operates one of the root name servers and is responsible for the
software.  We intend to follow Vixie's recommendations on hardware,
software, and the way in which the root name server is attached to
the LINX, which is in fact as you have described above.

--
Jim Dixon                  VBCnet GB Ltd           http://www.vbc.net
tel +44 117 929 1316                             fax +44 117 927 2015