Subject: Re: APPSDIR review of draft-ietf-netmod-rfc6021-bis-01

From: S Moonesamy <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 08 May 2013 10:03:43 -0700

At 01:32 30-04-2013, Juergen Schoenwaelder wrote:
>I am not sure what you think is unclear. Note that the definition of
>the typedef domain-name is unchanged from the one in RFC 6021. Perhaps
>you can make a concrete text change proposal so I better understand
>what your concern is.

I read draft-ietf-netmod-rfc6021-bis-02.  In Section 4:

   "The domain-name type represents a DNS domain name.  The
    name SHOULD be fully qualified whenever possible."

That sounds like a MAY.

The text in RFC 6021 and the draft is clear.  I don't think that the 
fact that DNS-related text is already in RFC 6021 means that it is correct.

   "Internationalized domain names MUST be encoded in punycode as described
    in RFC 3492";

RFC 5891 discusses about IDNA-aware implementations.  It also 
discusses about A-labels and U-labels.  The above text jumps directly 
to punycode.

Regards,
S. Moonesamy

---

From: Randy Bush <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 08 May 2013 21:53:01 +0200

>     name SHOULD be fully qualified whenever possible."

MAY != SHOULD

---

From: S Moonesamy <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 08 May 2013 13:44:44 -0700

>MAY != SHOULD

The text is as follows: "The name SHOULD be fully qualified whenever 
possible".  If the working group would like a RFC 2119 SHOULD it 
would help if there is an explanation in the sentence for the reader 
weigh the implications of not following that.

For what it is worth Eric Burger posted an analysis of "SHOULD" usage 
in a different draft ( 
http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/mile/current/msg01021.html ).

Regards,
S. Moonesamy

---

From: Joe Abley <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 8 May 2013 17:55:49 -0400

On 2013-05-08, at 17:30, S Moonesamy <[email-masked]> wrote:

> The text is as follows: "The name SHOULD be fully qualified whenever possible".  If the working group would like a RFC 2119 SHOULD it would help if there is an explanation in the sentence for the reader weigh the implications of not following that.

My knee-jerk reaction is to use MUST. Partially-qualified domain names
are ambiguous at best.

Similarly, "wherever possible" is unhelpful; if it's not possible to
fully-qualify a domain name then ambiguity is guaranteed.

Joe

---

From: [email-masked] (Martin Rex)
Date: Thu, 9 May 2013 08:31:01 +0200 (CEST)

>     name SHOULD be fully qualified whenever possible."

That is a MAY.  That probably needs to be a may.

How do you recognize a "fully qualified" name anyway?

Today a huge number of machines simply does not have a
"fully qualified domain name" (and uses private address space).

My DSL router (a brand that is pretty common in Germany)
does _not_ provide a domain name via DHCP and will resolve
plain hostnames for all addresses that it hands out via DHCP.
And a lot of stuff that you attach to home networks comes
with a Web-UI (my DVB-S Set-Top Box, my HomeNAS, my DSL-router
(although the latter recognizes "fritz.box" as a name for itself).

-Martin

---

From: Randy Bush <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 09 May 2013 09:28:22 +0200

> My knee-jerk reaction is to use MUST. Partially-qualified domain names

that is a separate issue

> fully-qualify a domain name then ambiguity is guaranteed.

no, that is what SHOLD means.  e.g. when i write docco that has an ops
clause where there is likely a knob or other op choice, i do not think
i have the prerogative to tell the op how they MUST run their network.
but i can say that they SHOULD do x.

randy

---

From: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 09 May 2013 09:06:33 -0400

--On Thursday, May 09, 2013 09:28 +0200 Randy Bush
<[email-masked]> wrote:

>> Similarly, "wherever possible" is unhelpful; if it's not
>> possible to fully-qualify a domain name then ambiguity is
>> guaranteed.
> 
> no, that is what SHOLD means.  e.g. when i write docco that
> has an ops clause where there is likely a knob or other op
> choice, i do not think i have the prerogative to tell the op
> how they MUST run their network. but i can say that they
> SHOULD do x.

If you are writing a protocol spec and you believe various bad
things can happen to you if partially-qualified names are used,
sure you do.  Whether your belief about possible damage and its
likelihood is reasonable is another question and that, IMO, is
the discussion we should be having.

Now that op has prerogatives too.   Because conformance to IETF
Standards is voluntary, it can ignore the MUST, leaving you the
option of calling the protocol police and/or deciding not to
deal with that op.  Or it could decide to not deal with you
because you make such unreasonable demands.  But neither of
those options deprive you, or the IETF, from saying "MUST" if
you are convinced it is necessary.  IMO, "necessary" should
include interoperability, security, or stable and predictable
operational reasons, despite 2119's apparent restriction to the
first of those.

best,
   john