Name Servers/IP Addresses

[Shane Kerr]

On 2001-01-29 10:11:55 +0000, Darren Loher wrote:
> 
> Removing the IP address for nameservers in whois should not be a
> problem, as anyone who needs it can obtain an accurate IP address for
> that zone by doing a DNS lookup.  That's a much better method as the
> IP address in DNS is what is actually used, not whois.

There is one advantage of ARIN tracking the IP of IN-ADDR servers.  In
that case, the ARIN DNS servers can provide glue records for the clients
performing the query.  These records provide information so the client
doesn't have to perform the additional DNS lookup(s), saving time and
network traffic.

Of course, this means that changes in server IP addresses have to be
updated in both the zones where they're delegated as well as the ARIN
database, an administrative overhead many organizations will wish to
avoid.  

If anything, it might be nice to provide an option to allow members to
set the IP address of their servers, as long as the explaination of the
benefit (faster queries for clients) and drawback (possible mismatch
between the name to address and address-to-name DNS mapping if records
are not kept in sync) is made clear.

> The order of nameservers in the whois database should also not be
> important, strictly speaking.  In DNS, an NS record is an NS record.
> There is no distintion regarding NS records between master and slave
> name servers.

True to a degree.  As you probably know, in the DNS system the orders
are typically shuffled in a random fashion, and the clients use the
Round Trip Time algorithm to direct their queries.  But if the Whois
server returns the same output for the same record every time, then it
makes life a lot easier on anyone who has, say, and automated tool to
compare the contents of Whois records.

If name servers are consistently ordered, then all that you need to do
is compare the text of the records.  If they are not, then you actually
have to parse the NS records out of the Whois reply, and compare the
list of NS entries seperately.  Not rocket science, but it does make
life harder on the users.  I humbly suggest that this is a Bad Thing.

Shane