pjg@urth.acsu.buffalo.edu (Paul Graham) (07/08/90)
sob@TMC.EDU (Stan Barber) writes: |While the DNS is distributed, there remains a big problem with the |in-addr.arpa domain. yep. |I would guess that there are two major problems at many sites: [lack of talent and lack of hardware for subnets] i don't know. could be. routers are pretty cheap though. |There is also the question of ultimate responsibility. Who is ultimately |responsible for the DNS run by a particular organization? What if that person |is not empowered to correct problems with the DNS in the sub-domains of that |organization? it's not clear to me how this is a problem. i was under the impression that the primary for the domain is the authoritative source for name service for users outside the domain. [the answer is procedures for interacting with the central authority] |That central authority would then be accountable for insuring the |accuracy of the information and timely updates to the central databases. If |the central authority is overworked, then funds need to be allocated by the |organization to improve the service . . . sure, if that works. my point is it doesn't always and i don't know of any good reason why the database should centralized. after all doesn't the above argument apply to the nic? a few more dollars and the nic could manage everything, hmmm in fact we could have just this one file with everyone in it and copy it out to all the hosts that want to do lookups. |It is not a question of power. It is a question of good service, accuracy of |data, and cooperation. bzzzzt. at lots of unpleasantly political institutions it is a question of power. e.g. in another life the people who owned the routers claimed they couldn't pass traffic unless everyone was in their domain. control freaks are alive and well and living on a network near you.
sob@TMC.EDU (Stan Barber) (07/08/90)
The NIC distributes authority for the top level domains in a well documented manner. If you are unfamiliar with it, we can discuss it off line. However, once you get into an organizational framework, things get murky to the user on the outside who observes that there is a problem. If the central authority (the NIC designate for that domain) keeps the authoratative database for that whole domain, there is only one group the user has to go to for a fix. The more distributed the thing gets the harder it is to get it fixed particularly if the authority does not have the organizational mechanism to get it fixed. This is really what I am pointing out. I have no problem with appropriate distribution of the DNS (both the domain name part or the in-addr.arpa part). However, in some instances I am aware of, the distribution of the DNS has only caused headaches for outside users (and their postmasters! :-). I am also aware of cases where some level of distibution would solve some problems as well. I am also aware of political realities and those power mongers out there, but I don't think having a responsible central authority as I have described is an indication of this. An irresponsible or unresponsive one is. STAN