[enum-wg] more enum resolver confusion

On 1 Apr 2011, at 15:08, Peter Andreev wrote:

>> Once upon a time ENUM people mumbled about a resolver: something  
>> that sat in
>> between the DNS lookup code and the application and did all the  
>> NAPTR record
>> processing: order/preference issues, NTNs, service selectors, etc.  
>> This
>> badly named beast would be the thing that dealt with any collisions  
>> and made
>> sure the application only got to see the NAPTRs it cared about.
>
> Hmm, I thought ENUM resolver is just the same as ordinary DNS  
> caching server.
> What the main difference between them?

I hoped that had been clearly explained in the paragraph above.  
Obviously not. Oh well... The (hypothetical?) ENUM resolver would be  
some code that spoke to a stub resolver that made DNS lookups and had  
an API to whatever applications wanted to avoid doing NAPTR record  
processing for themselves.

It was/is exceptionally stupid to call this middleware thing a  
resolver. Because it isn't one. That unfortunate choice of terminology  
creates needless confusion with DNS resolution. Sigh.

This so-called "resolver" is actually a NAPTR record processor/filter  
that sits *above* some DNS API but *below* the application. This bit  
of middleware does not get involved in DNS resolution, apart from  
maybe making more NAPTR lookups if it has to go chasing a chain of  
NTNs. It does not disrupt or interfere with the usual DNS model of  
stub resolvers talking to resolving (cacheing) name servers talking to  
authoritative name servers.