Re: Advertising info services via the DNS

Stan <sgreen@cs.utk.edu>

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Date: Tue, 19 Apr 1994 23:18:05 --100
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From: Stan <sgreen@cs.utk.edu>
To: Multiple recipients of list <www-talk@www0.cern.ch>
Subject: Re: Advertising info services via the DNS 
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In a message dated Tuesday, April 19 Martin Hamilton writes:

> Hi, 
> 
> Registering your service only requires the addition of a single line to
> your DNS configuration, e.g.
> 
>   www             IN      CNAME   lust.mrrl.lut.ac.uk.
>   lust            IN      A       158.125.220.7
>                   IN      TXT     http://www.mrrl.lut.ac.uk/
> 
> and...
> 
>   # nslookup
>   Default Server:  avarice.mrrl.lut.ac.uk
>   Address:  158.125.220.8
> 
>   > set type=txt
>   > www.mrrl.lut.ac.uk
>   Server:  avarice.mrrl.lut.ac.uk
>   Address:  158.125.220.8
> 
>   www.mrrl.lut.ac.uk      canonical name = lust.mrrl.lut.ac.uk
>   lust.mrrl.lut.ac.uk     text = "http://www.mrrl.lut.ac.uk/"
> 
> There is scope for putting some more info in here, e.g. brief
> description of server, admin contact, whether robots are
> allowed/encouraged, ...  I think this is the province of the info
> server, rather than the DNS
> 
> OK, what do you think of it so far?

We have looked at using TXT records for some URN stuff and we have
found that not many people support TXT records.  They are
running old nameservers.  Although the RFC for nameservice does specify TXT 
records,  it seems that many name servers do not support it.
Version 4.9.930517 of bind's named does, but even it has some problems.
So, in order for this to work, everyone is going to have to upgrade
their stuff.  Both nameservers + the lookup code.

I am not arguing for or against, just mentioning technical problems.

--Stan

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