[dns-wg] Re: Re: IPv6 glue AAAA RRs in the root zone

On 22 Jul, 2004, at 12:12, Jim Reid wrote:

>>>>>> "Joao" == Joao Damas <Joao_Damas at isc.org> writes:
>
> BN: cc list has been trimmed as everyone there is already on 
> dns-wg at ripe.net
>
>>>> Well, what other choice is there? :-) And anyway, since the
>>>> overwhelming bulk of the world's name servers are IPv4-only,
>>>> resolution over IPv6 doesn't seem to be a particularly
>>>> productive exercise.
>>>  True enough.
>
>     Joao> True enough for what subset of users?  If the a user is
>     Joao> interested in only a few and those provide the service that
>     Joao> user needs and uses, what does he/she care about a million
>     Joao> servers out there?
>
> It's not that simple Joao. If only it could be that simple...
>
> Have you forgotten the IPv6 migration issues that Johan Ihren and
> others have mentioned at previous WG meetings?

No, I have discussed them with Johan on occasion. Does that mean we are 
to seat down and do nothing? The problems are known and there are 
proposed solutions. At the same time the RSSAC was working on producing 
the recommendation for the IANA to accept AAAA in the root zone, it 
also discussed how to start this transition for the root-servers.net 
zone and the respective glue.

> Some IPv6 users will
> drop DNS over IPv4 as soon as they see AAAAs for TLD name servers. Or,
> worse, for the root servers. They may not realise or understand that
> this will cut them off from most of the internet. Which you seem to be
> saying is fine. If all they're interested in is the IPv6 internet, let
> them just get access to that. I'd agree with that sentiment if we knew
> for sure we were talking about informed, knowledgeable users. But I'm
> not convinced that's the case.

Did not know about your baby-sitting activities. You can't protect 
users from every possible mistake. You should analyse problems and 
recommend sensible defaults, while avoiding troublesome choices but 
this should not prevent progress. You can;t just sit around saying "oh, 
but there are all these unknowns and a choice is so hard..."

>
> Even so this approach brings more problems. Firstly, it highlights the
> lack of a migration strategy for introducing DNS over IPv6. We still
> don't know what's going to break, how those failures will manifest
> themselves and what the consequences of that will be. Both for
> applications/resolvers and for name servers.

A lot of this has been done or is being done.

>  For instance, what will
> my IPv6 web browser do when lookups over IPv6 for www.google.com
> return only A records?

What do you mean "your IPv6 web browser"?

>  Or SERVFAIL? Second of all, a piecemeal
> introduction of AAAA glue could be destablising for the DNS and the
> internet. We just don't know either way, so we should proceed
> carefully with a good understanding of the consequences of these
> changes. Thirdly, this could also put pressure on other TLDs to add
> AAAA glue -- "because others are doing this" -- before they're ready
> to do so.

Some people put non-conformant javascript and HTML in their web pages, 
they count on error handling, or lack thereof, of particular web 
browsers to put out web pages that can only be seen by those web 
browsers...
Of course changes need to be done in a responsible way and I am taking 
personal offence if you would suggest that I would not follow that 
path.

>  Finally, by encouraging the IPv6-only people to go off into
> their own little world, we fragment the internet and its name
> space.

No, you just are not getting it. I am talking about enabling, you are 
talking about limiting.

>  At the very least, it will mean some IPv6-ers are likely to
> develop a mindset that DNS migration to IPv6 is done and there's
> nothing more for them to do as far as IPv6 and the DNS is concerned.

Since when has that been possible for any protocol that is used on the 
Internet? DNS, the protocol, keeps changing and adding new 
possibilities, just like most other Internet protocols.

The bottom line: it is time to get going.

Joao