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List:       namedroppers
Subject:    Re: top level domains
From:       Robert Elz <munnari!kre () uunet ! UU ! NET>
Date:       1989-05-12 13:09:58
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    Date:        Thu, 11 May 89 10:42:45 PST
    From:        Paul Mockapetris <pvm@venera.isi.edu>
    Message-ID:  <8905111842.AA03037@venera.isi.edu>

    I think we are agreeing violently.

Yes, I suspect so.

    I don't see any point in reserving names without marking reservations
    in the database.

This can be viewed two ways ... a name that refers to something that can't
be reached may just as well not be in the database, so from that point
of view I agree.  But the simple reservation of a name also prevents
others from allocating the same name, for that purpose how the register
remembers that the name is allocated is irrelevant.  The database can
be used if convenient, but it need not be.

    Perhaps what you are saying is that the NIC should be willing
    to allocate names just as they do IP addresses.

Yes, that's more or less it - though of course it need not be the NIC.
Whoever administers a domain should be able to do this - it just happens
to be the NIC for the domains of interest (EDU, COM, etc) at the current
time.  This is an extremely painless way to obtain IP netnumbers, the
people at the NIC are very helpful, and the allocation is very quick.
To the best of my knowledge everyone (worldwide) uses this service - there
are no separate IP number allocation authorities anywhere else in the
world - perhaps leading some support to the theory that it is the procedural
requirements of having a domain name registered that has lead to the
creation of top level country domains rather than political.

    From the database's point of view this would require some RR to "mark"
    the name.

If you're using the database to record name allocations, then yes, that
would allow it.  However the database need not be used.  I administer the
"AU" domain - allocation of a new subdomain of AU does not currently
result in any nameserver alterations at all (the entire AU domain as
far as the nameservers are concerned is an SOA, a couple of NS's, and one
MX stored at uunet.uu.net).  Yet the names I allocate are still reserved.

    In the present scheme, we typically do this with an MX, on the perhaps
    unwarranted assumption of near-universal mail connectivity.

Even granting the assumption - the original problem stands.  How is
someone in some "foreign" country to locate willing persons to act
as their domain server and MX forwarder to allow this to take place?

    I suppose we could define a way to just say "allocated but nothing
    there yet."

I wonder if perhaps just the SOA with no data (incl no NS's) may be able
to do that?  Probably not - there would be no way to locate the SOA.

Entry in the NIC's "whois" database may be an equally viable method.

Still, I doubt that there is any point now - this was something that
needed to be forseen when name allocation was starting, no changes to
the mechanisms now are going to make a significant difference.

    Of course, this would open up a vast political can of worms about
    who gets what names.

I don't see any real difference here - whatever can of worms would
exist already exists.  The only difference is the number of worms...

kre

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