Re: SRV RR Questions

[Peter Koch <pk@TechFak.Uni-Bielefeld.DE>]

Michael Mealling wrote:

> Is it possible to get some kind of clarification that this is indeed the
> case and that I don't need to go update 3403 and 3404 just to stick an
> underscore into a domain-name that doesn't need it?

I did not find the critical section in 3403 but there is that example in
section 5.1 of 3404.
It seems to me that 'service' and 'protocol' shouldn't have been provided as
domain name prefixes but instead as seperate strings in the first place.
However, there's no option to change that now.

RFC 2782 does not only specify the SRV RR but also the way applications or
libraries are going to use this RR type to locate services. Unfortunately
in "The format of the SRV RR" it explicitly requires the first two labels
of the owner domain name to start with a '_'. So, following 2782 by the
letter, your usage would not be covered by the SRV spec. Then, this does
not make sense.

On the other hand, the way you use the SRV RRs starts one layer below where
2782 steps in. You already have the "translated" version at hand, so why
bother with "udp" and "tcp" at all? "foolink.udp.example.com" is as good or
bad as "foolink.example.com". But then, if you have a SRV-aware "rcds"
client (2nd example), it would ask for "_rcds._udp.example.com" and you'd
end up with two parallel sub-namespaces for the same purpose (_udp and udp).

So, for the sake of consistency, I'd think the '_' should always be used,
especially in documentation and examples to reduce readers' confusion.

-Peter

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