Subject: Re: Last Call: draft-saintandre-tls-server-id-check

From: =JeffH <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 18 Jul 2010 15:24:12 -0700

Paul Hoffman replied..
 >
 > At 5:22 AM -0400 7/17/10, John C Klensin wrote:
 >> (1) In Section 4.4.1, the reference should be to the IDNA2008 discussion.
 >> The explanations are a little better vis-a-vis the DNS specs and it is a
 >> bad idea to reference an obsolete spec.
 >
 > +1. I accept blame on this one, since I was tasked on an earlier version to
 > bring the IDNA discussion up to date.

Well, I wrote the "traditional domain name" text in -tls-server-id-check, and 
yes I looked at IDNA2008, but only -idnabis-protocol I think, and missed 
-idnabis-defs where said discussion resides. So mea culpa. Yes, the latter 
discussion is even better than the one in IDNA2003. Thanks for catching this.

Here's a re-write of the first para of -tls-server-id-check Section 4.4.1, I've 
divided it into two paragraphs..

    The term "traditional domain name" is a contraction of this more
    formal and accurate name: "traditional US-ASCII
    letter-digit-hyphen DNS domain name". Note that
    letter-digit-hyphen is often contracted as "LDH". (Traditional)
    domain names were originally defined in [DNS-CONCEPTS] and
    [DNS] in conjunction with [HOSTS], though
    [I-D.ietf-idnabis-defs-13] provides a complete, up-to-date
    domain name label taxonomy.

    Traditional domain names consist of a set of one or more
    non-IDNA LDH labels (e.g., "www", "example", and "com"), with
    the labels usually shown separated by dots (e.g.,
    "www.example.com"). There are additional qualifications, see
    [I-D.ietf-idnabis-defs-13], but they are not germane to this
    specification.

how does that look?

thanks,

=JeffH

---

From: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 18 Jul 2010 20:02:52 -0400

--On Sunday, July 18, 2010 15:24 -0700 "=JeffH"
<[email-masked]> wrote:

> Well, I wrote the "traditional domain name" text in
> -tls-server-id-check, and yes I looked at IDNA2008, but only
> -idnabis-protocol I think, and missed -idnabis-defs where said
> discussion resides. So mea culpa. Yes, the latter discussion
> is even better than the one in IDNA2003. Thanks for catching
> this.
> 
> Here's a re-write of the first para of -tls-server-id-check
> Section 4.4.1, I've divided it into two paragraphs..
> 

Jeff, this works for me, but I don't think you really do the
spec's readers any favors by trying to reiterate the entire
history of terminology in this area (and, incidentally, leaving
things out that some folks might consider important like the
leading digit exception in 1123).  Someday, someone should
produce a definitive DNS terminology document, but this spec
shouldn't try to be it.

Given that, let me argue for simplicity.  Accept the definition
of "LDH label" from the RFC-to-be that represents
ietf-idnabis-defs-13, use that term where appropriate (you are
likely to need it where you discuss what gets converted to an
A-label) and, if you then need it at all, define "traditional
domain name" as consisting entirely of LDH labels.   

That avoids getting unnecessarily tangled up in the 1034/1035
text on the subject, the debate about whether pieces of the host
table definition are part of the normative story at all, and the
question of whether 2181 has to be read in a way that would
prevent your preempting "traditional" for this restricted set of
names, especially if you are trying to re-derive the rules from
primary sources.  And it shortens your text considerably.

    john

---

From: Andrew Sullivan <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 19 Jul 2010 08:57:06 -0400

> produce a definitive DNS terminology document, but this spec

I think this is sound advice, and I think the rest of John's
suggestion is also a good one.  There are enough confusing
interpretations of DNS terminology around without adding to them.

(As to John's suggestion for a "definitive" DNS terminology document,
all I can say is that it's hard enough to herd the DNS cats on topics
where everyone seems roughly in agreement.  Getting consensus on such
a definitive document strikes me as more like trying to herd
Schrödinger's cats.)

A

-- 
Andrew Sullivan
[email-masked]
Shinkuro, Inc.