Re: Last Call: <draft-faltstrom-uri-10.txt> (The Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) DNS Resource Record) to Proposed Standard

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IESG / Patrik,

First of all - I think it's interesting to carry URIs in DNS. However, I have a few concerns about the document that I'd like to work through.


## The ENUM service registry

The document effectively gives a "type" for the URI by associating a value from the ENUM service registry. While that makes sense from the standpoint of ENUM, if this mechanism is truly generic to *all* URIs, it seems to me that it'd be much more sensible to use the typing system already in place for URIs -- link relations <http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc5988>.

As it is, I think this proposal is going to surprise a lot of people very unpleasantly, when they find that URIs have effectively become subservient to ENUM, at least within the confines of DNS.

This could be addressed by either using link relations (although I realise that would require a fair amount of work), or by renaming the RR to "ENUM_URI" or similar, along with appropriate changes in the text (i.e., this is a record specific to ENUM, not generic to all URIs in DNS).


## The "home page" example

Section 6 uses a "home page" lookup as the only example application for this RR. To my knowledge, no Web browser does this or is considering doing so, and moreover, pretty much any Web stack person would be extremely surprised by both this. 

Do you have any implementations of this use case, or prospect for them? Have you talked to Web security folks about the implications of doing so?



## Alternative approaches

In Appendix A (D), the original allocation request says:

"""
There is no easy way to get from a domain name to a URI (or IRI).  
"""

That's not actually true any more; we now have Well-Known URIs <https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc5785>, which allows an application to define how to get a URI from a bare hostname. While it's true that it's currently a little more expensive than DNS (requiring a TCP connection for the time being), we do have substantial deployment experience with it, and it seems to be operationally much simpler, as compared to adding a new DNS record. 

Are there use cases where .well-known isn't workable, as compared to this RR?

Cheers,



> On 28 Jan 2015, at 9:38 am, The IESG <iesg-secretary@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
> 
> 
> The IESG has received a request from an individual submitter to consider
> the following document:
> - 'The Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) DNS Resource Record'
>  <draft-faltstrom-uri-10.txt> as Proposed Standard
> 
> The IESG plans to make a decision in the next few weeks, and solicits
> final comments on this action. Please send substantive comments to the
> ietf@xxxxxxxx mailing lists by 2015-02-24. Exceptionally, comments may be
> sent to iesg@xxxxxxxx instead. In either case, please retain the
> beginning of the Subject line to allow automated sorting.
> 
> Abstract
> 
> 
>   This document defines a new DNS resource record, called the Uniform
>   Resource Identifier (URI) RR, for publishing mappings from hostnames
>   to URIs.
> 
>   This document updates RFC 3404 and RFC 3958.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> The file can be obtained via
> http://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-faltstrom-uri/
> 
> IESG discussion can be tracked via
> http://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-faltstrom-uri/ballot/
> 
> 
> No IPR declarations have been submitted directly on this I-D.
> 
> 

--
Mark Nottingham   https://www.mnot.net/






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