[gnso-rds-pdp-wg] Now open: 18 January Poll on Purpose

[Rob Golding]

> When things break, one thing any competent network admin does is check
> the DNS to make sure something isn't wrong.  If that doesn't seem broken,
> one immediately checks whois/RDDS to see whether what's in the DNS is
> what's _supposed_ to be there.  I admit to being a newbie to the Internet,
> since I didn't join it until some time in the 1990s, but as near as I can
tell this is
> what people have _always_ done to diagonose problems.  

Definitely not disagreeing with the principle -  yes it's more-or-less what
sysadmins doing diagnostics have always done - although I think you missed
the very first step which is
* ask when the user last fiddled with it (not ever taking their first
answer)

Where I see the methodology differing slightly is the "check whois" part

Now it's _probably_ due to the type of business we are in - instead of "look
at whois" (which was for many years a part of the process) as a Registrar
that became
* check our own systems 
* query the registry

Or quite often when guiding people through the same what-is-broken checks
swapping some of that for 
* check with your registrar

The RDS part of the checking has for a long time in my experience been
declining in usefulness - often even diverting onto looking at
non-exist-problems at the expense of dealing with the actual issue

What you said about "to see whether what's in the DNS is what's _supposed_
to be there" is 100% correct !

I just think with the real disconnect between "the system that puts it in
the tld zone" and "the system that displays stuff to the public" at
registrars/registries [ which is why we have "you'll update the whois with T
period" sections in ICANN contracts ] it's the wrong thing to be using to
verify things.

It's not the "end of the world" to me either way 

> note, the reason that a "centralized" system that holds all the data for
all
> registries is as astonishingly bad idea, because it creates yet a new data
sync
> problem that cannot be
> checked.)

Agreed, I'm not a fan of that idea.

Neither am I a fan of the current com/net whois-referral system rather than
the details per domain being at the actual registry for that TLD because of
the data dupe/sync/accuracy/availability issues
(plus making transfers easier etc) 

> There are lots of other uses of the current whois system that I think are
> bogus (I think, for instance, that the encroachment of intellectual
property
> claims on the DNS has been an unmitigated disaster for the Internet).  But
> this technical use is the basic point of the RDS facility, and I think it
is plainly
> useful.

I'm not disagreeing it has _been_ useful - I just don't see it as having
remained as useful / reliable as it was in back when we could carry a list
of all the domain names in existence  in a lever arch binder :)

Rob




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