Re: Document Status?

John C Klensin <[email protected]> wrote:

>       Just as has been the case with LDH names, some zone
>       administrators may impose restrictions, beyond those imposed
>       by the protocol, on the characters or strings that may be
>       registered as labels in their zones.  Such restrictions do not
>       impact the protocols themselves; a query for a name that does
>       not exist will yield the same response regardless of the reason
>       why it is not in the relevant zone.  Restrictions imposed on a
>       per-zone basis MUST NOT have any impact on the behavior of the
>       on-the-wire protocol, and MUST NOT assume that clients issuing
>       queries or interpreting responses will have any knowledge of
>       zone-specific restrictions or conventions.

Thanks John, that looks helpful.  I just have a few nitpicky comments
and questions about the precise wording.

    Just as has been the case with LDH names,

The phrase "LDH name" or "LDH label" appears nowhere in the document, so
let's not introduce it now.  Let's say "ASCII names".

    some zone administrators

Let's say "DNS zone administrators".  This text would be going into
section 2, which currently does not talk about DNS at all, so we need to
establish that context for this paragraph.

    may impose restrictions, beyond those imposed by the protocol,

Which protocol?  Maybe you mean "imposed by DNS or IDNA".

    on the characters or strings that may be registered as labels
    in their zones.  Such restrictions do not impact the protocols
    themselves;

Which protocols are not impacted?  Recently you were saying how
important it is for DNS update protocols to have distinct return codes
for "invalid name" versus "inadmissible name", so this part of the DNS
protocol *would* be impacted by per-zone name restrictions.

    a query for a name that does not exist will yield the same response
    regardless of the reason why it is not in the relevant zone.

Okay.

    Restrictions imposed on a per-zone basis MUST NOT have any impact on
    the behavior of the on-the-wire protocol,

Again, which protocol?

    and MUST NOT assume that clients issuing queries or interpreting
    responses will have any knowledge of zone-specific restrictions or
    conventions.

I'd rather not insert requirements into the terminology section.
Couldn't we say "have no impact" and "cannot assume that clients"?

Here's a stab at addressing these concerns, although you might be able
to come up with something better:

    Just as has been the case with ASCII names, some DNS zone
    administrators may impose restrictions, beyond those imposed by
    DNS or IDNA, on the characters or strings that may be registered
    as labels in their zones.  Such restrictions have no impact on the
    syntax or semantics of DNS protocol messages; a query for a name
    that does not exist will yield the same response regardless of
    the reason why it is not in the zone.  Clients issuing queries or
    interpreting responses cannot be assumed to have any knowledge of
    zone-specific restrictions or conventions.

AMC