Re: Network Description Files for GLIF

[Freek Dijkstra <fdijkstr@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hello Steven,

Some suggestions about using other DNS record types.

You wrote (in June) about the DNS specs:

> Here's the idea:
>
> all.network-map.net. TXT "us-uk-nl-ca"
> FQDN   TXT record showing what country codes contain network map data
>
> all.us.network-map.net. TXT "IN-OH-FL"
> FQDN TXT record showing what states (in the US) have network map data
>
> all.oh.us.network-map.net. TXT "TFN"
> FQDN TXT record showing the name of network(s) in Ohio

Though I personally still think this idea is misusing of DNS  (I'm aware 
you're the only one using), I think you really have impressive results. 
Especially the picture is really very nice.

I think from a technical viewpoint you can improve this. In the Service 
Discovery effort (those who implemented SRV -service- records), there 
have been ideas how to point to other records. They solve this using PTR 
records. For example, your example would look like:

> network-map.net. PTR  us
> network-map.net. PTR  uk
> network-map.net. PTR  nl
> network-map.net. PTR  ca
> FQDN   PTR record showing what country codes contain network map data
>
> us.network-map.net. PTR  in
> us.network-map.net. TXT  oh
> us.network-map.net. TXT  fl
> FQDN PTR record showing what states (in the US) have network map data
>
> us.network-map.net. PTR  TFN
> FQDN PTR record showing the name of network(s) in Ohio

Note that a entry can have multiple PTR and TXT records. So even if you 
would use TXT records, I recommend using multiple ones, e.g.:
> network-map.net. TXT "us"
> network-map.net. TXT "uk"
> network-map.net. TXT "nl"
> network-map.net. TXT "ca"


In addition, there is still work going on regarding avoiding DNS cache 
problems. For example, there are proposals for mechanism to not fetch 
information from DNS, but get it pushed to you.
I recommend http://www.dns-sd.org/ (DNS service discovery) as a starting 
point.


Regards,
Freek Dijkstra