[dns-wg] Syntax of the "nserver:" Attribute in Domain Objects

On Tue, Aug 21, 2012 at 12:48:49PM +0200, Anand Buddhdev wrote:

> ns1.2.0.192.in-addr.arpa 172800 IN A 192.0.2.1
> ns2.2.0.192.in-addr.arpa 172800 IN AAAA 2001:db8::2
> ns1.2.0.192.in-addr.arpa 172800 IN AAAA 2001:db8::1
> ns2.2.0.192.in-addr.arpa 172800 IN AAAA 2001:db8::2
> 
> In a DNS zone, the order of the records does not matter, and the DNS
> server into which this zone is loaded will handle it (duplicates would
> be discarded too). The code to turn such nserver attributes into DNS
> records is not at all complex.

are you suggesting that the above should be valid, just because
subsequent DNS zone processing would eliminate the duplicate?

> This does look more natural. However, we'd have to write code to expect
> the following:
> 
> nserver: ns1.example.com <addr1> <addr2> ... <addrN>
> 
> This is easier to parse than the current list syntax, but code would
> still have to transform this into appropriate records for delegation
> testing and eventual delegation.

Indeed, but what is the issue?

> We still prefer the simple syntax of:
> 
> nserver: name <optional address>

I was under the impression that the objects in the RIPE DB have
semantics in and of themselves, not just exist as syntactic glue (no pun)
for the provisioning system.  That makes me think the reasoning is
a bit backwards.  I won't die over this, but let me say that on a meta level
i sense a shift in engineering paradigms that may be more indicative of
my aging than a worrying trend.

> However, we're quite eager to hear from our users to see what they think.

It would ineed be helpful if more members of the community contributed here.

-Peter