minutes from RIPE-27 (Dublin, May 97!) DNS WG session

Dear WG members,

please find below the minutes with all change requests (all typos) received
during RIPE-28 in Amsterdam worked in.
This will be considered final after a week comment period (deadline Sunday,
October 12th).

Ruediger Volk




(Draft) Minutes of
DNS Working Group Working Group meeting
Chair:	Ruediger Volk

RIPE-27
Wed May 22 1997

1. Adminstrativa
scribe: Wilhelm Buehler, de.xlink
action items: no open ones
minutes of last meeting: no problems reported

2. Reports
2 a) root-server K.root-servers.NET (Carol Orange)
   - the new root-server is up since last friday (May 16th)
   - operated by the RIPE-NCC with 24/7 service (RFC 2010)
   - runs on two industrial PC running BSDI-Unix
      with a hotswap-disc
   - only for "."-Zone
	
2 b ) DNS-Database Referal (Carol Orange and Wilfried Woeber)
   Aim: User can find authoritative data about domains, without 
        knowing, where it is.
	Administrators don't have to store the data in multiple
	databases.
   new attribute in domain-object :
	refer: <type> <host> <port>
	(where type is the style of whois, like RIPE, InterNIC)	
   This looks like a URL, but whois is not a registered protocoll
	for URL.  Carol: "We should register it"
   How to handle the request forwarding?
	a) query server with original searchkey; forward response
	b) return object with referral data (as now)
	c) send query to server with address of sender 
	to a: 	+ only change to RIPE server
		- doesn't scale
	to b: 	+ will scale
		- significant time to get it working
    => start with option a)
	=> develop referral aware clients
	=> support a) and b) until server load gets too high
    The whois-server (RIPE) is performing function + client
	is using it, determines whehter (a) or (b).
	- If a adminstrator doesn't want this, put the information
	in a 'remarks:', not a 'refer:'-line
    Problem mentioned: 
	- recursive referrals (if other servers offer this too)
    Action: look on scalability
2 c) NCC In-addr-Tool (Carol Orange alias Maldwyn Morris)
     Credits:
	- prev. version: David Kessens
	- modification done by Maldwyn Morris
     Reverse delegation is now mostly automated.
	- checks IP-address, SOA, NS, Zone-data
	- reachability of servers, UDP-checksum used
	- comparing with RIPE-Database
	- ns.ripe.net is requiered fo /16
		it's forbidden for /24
	- includes assignment-window-check
	- human hostmaster only approves the request at the end
        => Improves turn-a-round-time, 
	prevents human errors, scalabilty
    running since May 6th, in a couple of weeks on the ftp-site (in source)

    Feature 
	with Keyword 'TEST': all tests will be done, but the request
	will not be preceeded by RIPE-NCC

2 d) BIND ( Francis Dupont, INRIA)
	new version 4.95 patch 2
	named 8.1 has new configuration file syntax
	incl. notify-feature (=> SOA requirement out of date?)

2 e) IETF DNSIND WG (no report from Memphis directly)
	ongoing and going fine
	- cidr-delegation internet draft (best-current-practice)
	- dynamic update
	- security
	- clarification

3) Activities for the WG
	- Review recommendations (SOA requirement)
	- Target of the WG ?