[AFS3-std] DNS SRV Resource Records for AFS

[David Boyes]

On 10/5/09 2:21 PM, "Jeffrey Altman" <jaltman@secure-endpoints.com> wrote:

>> David Boyes raised the excellent point that this draft doesn't talk abou=
t
>> TTLs.  As I suspect everyone reading this list already knows, once an
>> existing AFS client decides on a VLDB server to talk to, it never redoes
>> the DNS query and hence isn't going to honor TTLs on SRV records.
> Although this is an implementation detail, as a point of fact the
> Windows cache manager records
> AFSDB record TTL values and uses them to timeout the server lists.  It
> is true that the
> Unix cache manager does not do so and this should be fixed but that is no=
t
> a topic for this list.

What it should do is *exactly* the topic for this list. Should it or
shouldn't it? If we say it should, then the Unix cache manager should be
fixed to become compliant. Otherwise, as you say, implementation detail tha=
t
can't be held to be non-compliant.

> I do not think that documenting an implementation deficiency is
> appropriate for a protocol standard.

If there are known deviances that are allowed to persist for operational
reasons, a note in the standard to that fact that such things exist doesn't
do any harm, and allows other implementers to react accordingly and code
defensively.=20

> In my opinion, opening a ticket in the OpenAFS RT would be appropriate.

Different issue. It isn't broken until we decide what un-broken is.=20