DNS for Protocol Designers

Presented by: Olafur Gumundsson, Peter Koch

Sunday, November 6 at 15:00-17:00
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Various IETF working groups' protocols/applications have need for 
universal distribution of information related to their operation. 
The Domain Name System (DNS) is the natural fit to carry certain 
information.

While the DNS is indeed a very valuable and powerful tool fulfilling  
its tasks very well for almost two decades now, it does not serve all 
proposed new uses equally well. And even if the DNS is the lookup 
system of choice, the extent to which the DNS is used still needs to 
be considered. Sometimes, the DNS's strength, its global availability, 
turns out to be a weakness when it comes to operational issues, 
tracking bugs and fighting misconceptions.

This tutorial will cover DNS basics and how best to take advantage of  
DNS, as well as covering the pitfalls.

We will cover in particular common misconceptions and design criteria 
to be used. Among the topics here are:

        o Wildcards
        o Sub typing
        o Additional-section processing rules
        o Unknown RR type support
        o Tree walking
        o ...

The tutorial will not cover DNS server or resolver configuration, 
server operations or how to further develop or optimize the DNS 
protocol intrinsics.

This tutorial will be most useful to those designing protocols in 
the  applications area (i.e. wg chairs, document editors, design 
team members).