An idea to bounce off people: storing routing info in the DNS instead of the routers.

[Michael Gersten]

Here's an idea that I wanted to bounce off people, a way to extend  
IPv4, reduce the size of the routing tables used by the routers,  
enable /31's to be published (are /32's even legal? If so, them too),  
and solve the complaint that people have of only ARIN issuing IP  
numbers (with no clear idea of what numbers or what criteria) by  
allowing anyone with extra IP's to act as an assigner of IP's.

The general assumptions are:
1. CIDR table reduction is blocked by non-collapsable entries (I.e,  
there's a lot of different published routes going through each  
backbone provider, which can never be collapsed without major  
renumbering)
2. Multihomed network entries are not a large component of the  
routing tables (A multihomed network: Any backbone that connects  
to two or more interconnection points, or any ISP that connects to  
two or more backbones, or any network that connects to two or  
more ISPs),
3. A new version of VJ-header compression can be written to deal  
with loose source routes in the headers (on the assumption that 99%  
of the loose source routes will be the same as the last one, just like  
the current assumption that 99% of the packets will go to the same  
place as the last packet),
4. Routers either (A) do not mind loose source routes in packets  
going through them, or (B) can have their software modified so that  
loose source routes, if "unchanged" (see 3 above), are essentially the  
same as destination addresses,
5. People will (can be forced to) update their DNS entries if the  
alternative is no packets will reach them (for the average dialup user  
this is a do-nothing -- their ISP will update the ISP's DNS entries if  
the ISP changes its backbone provider),
6. Someone else can solve the DNS security issues (:-)
7. All "major" routers -- those used by sprint, MCI, etc, can get  
software updates within about 6 months or less,
8. (The Big One): IP v4 has a router redirect message that can  
specify a loose source route to use, not just a single host to use, and  
that most vendor's ship an IP stack that accepts this message  
correctly,
9. Adding a new DNS RR to the v4 DNS isn't difficult (will live in the  
in-addr.arpa domain, just like the PTR record does now)

Before I send off the idea, I wanted to get people's comments on  
these assumptions, especially #8. (Some of you may already see  
what I'm saying here).

Note on #6: Right now I can find rfc's describing RIP, and how  
routing used to work in the internet. I know that things are not the  
same as they used to be, and that there's a lot of security in the  
routing protocols now, but I do not know which rfc's describe the  
current situation. I also understand that the DNS system can be  
easily lied to, so security is a real concern on this.

		Michael
p.s. I apologize if these are not the appropriate lists; they are the  
most appropriate ones I know of.
--
Michael Gersten     michael at stb.info.com      http://www.stb.info.com/~michael
NeXT Registered Developer (NeRD) # 3860 
Without Prejudice, UCC 1-207
** HIRE ME: http://www.stb.info.com/~michael/work/