[dns-operations] root? we don't need no stinkin' root!

[Mark Allman]

Hi Paul!

> The biggest problem I see here is the legacy/long-tail problem. As
> of a few years ago, I bumped into BIND 4 servers still
> active. Wouldn't be shocked to hear they are still being used.
>
> IPv4 reachable traditional DNS servers for some tiny group of
> antique folks will be needed for years, even if we get 99+% of the
> world to some new system.

I wonder if we're ever allowed to just decide this sort of thing is
ridiculous old shit and for lots of reasons we can and should just
garbage collect it away.

> Doesn't mean we shouldn't be thinking about a better way to do it
> for that 99% though.

Is it better if we only get to 99%?

To me, this whole notion is that we can in fact get rid of this
giant network service.  If we don't get rid of it then what is the
incentive to move one's own resolver away from using the root
nameservers?  I don't have any heartburn with RFC 7706.  But, it is
a quite minor optimization in the general case.  It may well be
important in some corner cases, but in general I don't think running
a local root nameserver helps all that much.

Maybe 99% lets us draw down the size of the root infrastructure...I
dunno.  But, if we don't say something like "it's going to go away"
then I am not sure resolvers will move away from it.

allman


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