[dns-operations] _nicname._tcp

[Jim Reid]

On 26 Jul 2010, at 21:32, Geoffrey Sisson wrote:

>> Well I tried them all because every TLD is a favourite. :-) Only 29
>> out of 288 TLDs have these _nicname._tcp.$TLD SRV records. 248 TLDs
>> return NXDOMAIN. This doesn't quite meet a reasonable definition of
>> "pretty good community acceptance". Your mileage may vary.
>
> Not bad for an -01 draft that expired six years ago.

Fair enough. However a long-dead draft that got little traction then  
or since hardly inspires confidence that the concept behind it is  
still worth pursuing today. If others disagree, feel free to exhume  
the draft and have another run at the issue.

I wonder too if anyone deploying these SRV records has done any  
research on how often they're looked up and the results are acted on?  
It would be interesting to get some raw data on the number of SRV- 
aware whois clients that are out there, how often they get used and  
how many lookups they generate.

>> FWIW, 154 TLDs don't have entries at $TLD.whois-servers.net. A bunch
>> of the ones that do exist there are iffy. Over 20 are CNAMEs for the
>> RIPE NCC whois server.
>
> What does this have to do with draft-sanz-whois-srv?

It's just an example of another ad-hoc idea for finding whois servers  
that didn't catch on.

There doesn't seem to be much point in promoting these schemes. Or  
adding to the confusion by having "competing" incompatible and  
inconsistent ways to try to do the same thing. To put it bluntly, none  
of these ideas have been widely adopted by TLD registries even though  
they required negligible effort. The registries have voted with their  
feet. The idea is dead. Sorry.

>> So to summarise, there are quite a few ad-hoc schemes for finding
>> whois servers. None appear to dominate. [Though I'll bet on google
>> being the favourite.] They may well have incorrect or conflicting
>> information. In short, it's a mess. I doubt anyone has the appetite  
>> or
>> energy to fix it. Unless IETF or some registry club like CENTR come  
>> up
>> with a public standard that can be assimilated into a universally
>> accepted registry BCP or something like that. I wouldn't hold my
>> breath...
>
> Wouldn't draft-sanz-whois-srv serve as a basis for this?

Possibly. Though since that draft died 6-7 years ago, nobody's yet  
showed an interest in reviving it and few registries are using the  
scheme, I think that tells its own story. As I said earlier, it  
doesn't seem likely anyone has the appetite or energy to work on this.  
Or persuade registries to adopt it. If they did, something would have  
happened long before now. It hasn't. QED.