[wg-c] The IAB statement on sharing DNS domain registires

[Dave Crocker <dcrocker@brandenburg.com>]

An official statement by the Internet Architecture Board, "IAB Technical 
Comment on the Unique DNS Root" 
<http://search.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-iab-unique-dns-root-00.txt> 
contains a number of points directly addressing the question of shared (or 
competing) registry management.

What follows are brief extracts concerning that issue.  Note that the 
statements are quite explicit and direct, and that the IAB views these as 
technical statements of fact, rather than subjective or policy matters.

>1.  Summary
...
>    That one root must be
>    supported by a small number of coordinated root servers, and
>    administered by a unique naming authority.


>2.1.  Maintenance of a Common Symbol Set
...

>    DNS names are designed to be globally unique, that is, for any
>    one DNS name at any one time there must be a single set of DNS
>    records uniquely describing protocol addresses, network resources and
>    services associated with that DNS name.
...
>    Since the DNS is hierarchically structured into domains, the
>    uniqueness requirement for DNS names in their entirety implies that
>    each of the names (sub-domains) defined within a domain has a unique
>    meaning (i.e.  set of DNS records) within that domain.  This is as
>    true for the root domain as for any other DNS domain.  The
>    requirement for uniqueness within a domain further implies that there
>    be some mechanism to prevent name conflicts within a domain.  In DNS
>    this is accomplished by assigning a single owner or maintainer to
>    every domain, including the root domain, who is responsible for
>    ensuring that each sub-domain of that domain has the proper records
>    associated with it.  This is a technical requirement, not a policy
>    choice.


2.2.  Coordination of Updates

>    Both the design and implementations of the DNS protocol are heavily
>    based on the assumption that there is a single owner or maintainer
>    for every domain, and that any set of resources records associated
>    with a domain is modified in a single-copy serializable fashion.
>    That is, even assuming that a single domain could somehow be "shared"
>    by uncooperating parties, there is no means within the DNS protocol
>    by which a user or client could discover, and choose between,
>    conflicting definitions of a DNS name made by different parties.

d/

=-=-=-=-=
Dave Crocker  <dcrocker@brandenburg.com>
Brandenburg Consulting  <www.brandenburg.com>
Tel: +1.408.246.8253,  Fax: +1.408.273.6464
675 Spruce Drive,  Sunnyvale, CA 94086 USA