Greg, you're tryin' too hard

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1

[Apologies to NANOG; Greg sent me a reply off list, all three of his
addresses feed to weird, and weird is *still* *entirely* too Catholic
about machines with perfectly valid A records that do not also have MX
records. I won't be continuing this thread, so as to avoid annoying
anyone.]

I don't know that you'll actually *get* this; ISTR you having your
mailer set to be More Catholic Than The Pope...

[ On Saturday, January 27, 2001 at 21:57:00 ( -0500), Jay R. Ashworth wrote: ]
> Subject: Re: How common is lack of DNS server diversity?
>
> Well, actually, Greg, there are multiple root clusters, with multiple
> sets of authoritative root servers -- but only one of those is
> consecrated by DoC/ICANN.

Yeah, OK, but the "consecrated" set isn't a "cluster", If I'm guessing
correctly what you mean by that...

I meant it in the administrative sense, not the technical one. Yeah,
by that definition, it's a cluster.

> The other ones do exist, do work, and so far as I'm aware, there are
> not currently any rogue redelegations of "traditional" gTLDs, nor many,
> if any, collisions of non-traditional gTLDs, amongst the various ones.

Yeah, but just what percentage of real users ever hit them? I know of
no major ISP that uses anything but the DoC/IANA DNS. Come to think of
it I don't know of *any* ISP using the rogues.

No, I don't think they do, at the moment. None of the first or second
tier access providers, certainly. I do know of at least a few
third-tier (read: mom-n-pop's) that are.

I don't know exactly how the rogues work either, though if I'm guessing
right they're not very safely or securely implemented since they'll
require recursion be enabled. So, "work" might be a relative term here.

Indeed. I don't know if they're separating resolver and zone servers
or not. They should be, of course; I haven't dug into the technical
details.

I *can* say, though, that not all the people involved are
Friends-of-Gene, nor kooks.

I don't think I've ever seen a published URL point to any of there new
TLDs either, and of course even if I did I couldn't see if it "worked"
anyway.

That depends, of course, on your definition of "published". :slight_smile:

Nice experiments maybe, pushing the envelope possibly, but otherwise a
total waste of time and effort.

I don't think so at all. While who runs the root servers and who runs
the root *zone* are two separate questions, unfortunately almost always
conflated, in the long run I think that the word 'confederation' will
almost have to be the best term for the former... (I absolutely
*shudder* at the thought of the FBI pulling a raid on NetSol and
yanking *all* their roots down simultaneously... and if you think that
can't happen, you ain't been paying attention), and as for the
latter...well, we'll see.

Cheers,
-- jra

2

I don't know that "Catholic" is a good term for it, since he's violating RFCs
and admits it proudly.

I think that makes it more Episcopalian. :slight_smile:

3

[ On Sunday, January 28, 2001 at 11:23:40 (-0500), Shawn McMahon wrote: ]

Subject: Re: Greg, you're tryin' too hard

I don't know that "Catholic" is a good term for it, since he's violating RFCs
and admits it proudly.

Only one contradictory sub-paragraph of one requirement of one RFC....

I think that makes it more Episcopalian. :slight_smile:

:slight_smile:

4

Whichever religion it may be, it means that I shitcan his replies,
since my only other option is to piss NANOG off with mine -- since mail
that will go to 99.44% of other mailers on the net won't go to his.

If a A record with no MX record was A Bad Thing, sendmail, postfix, and
M-Sexchange would no doubt have quit delivering to them years ago.

BTW, Greg: On my carbons to your two other addresses? The envelope
addresses *weren't* *mine*: you were being overly picky on the *body*
*address*. So bugger off.

Cheers,
-- jra

5

[[ Sorry folks, but because Jay is being stupid, I'm going to be stupid too. ]]
[[ at least I set the Reply-To: !!! ]]

[ On Monday, January 29, 2001 at 10:33:34 (-0500), Jay R. Ashworth wrote: ]

Subject: Re: Greg, you're tryin' too hard

If a A record with no MX record was A Bad Thing, sendmail, postfix, and
M-Sexchange would no doubt have quit delivering to them years ago.

Postfix, Exim, *and* Smail all include the ability to do identical (or
at least very similar) checks on the SMTP protocol commands and
parameters.

Folks like me who don't like spam yet seem to get a lot of it targetted
at them (and/or their domain -- it was a good idea at the time, before
the Internet took off! :-), are entirely likely to enable those checks,
which means folks who don't pay attention to the details in their mailer
and DNS configurations will lose.

I don't care if one or two people can't send me e-mail so long as the
majority works (and let me tell you, the majority certainly works!) --
that's their problem, not mine. Unless your mailer is listed in one of
the RBLs, I'm not going to permanently block your e-mail if you're
willing to fix your configurations.

BTW, Greg: On my carbons to your two other addresses? The envelope
addresses *weren't* *mine*: you were being overly picky on the *body*
*address*. So bugger off.

That would be magic beyond my capabilities since my mailer cannot look
in the body of the message (at least not yet). If you're getting
bounces from my mailer when you 'CC' another of my addresses then it's
because your SMTP envelope sender address is bogus. Fix it. I'm not
even going to bother looking in my logs to see just how bogus it is and
recommend a way to fix it.

6

[[ Sorry folks, but because Jay is being stupid, I'm going to be stupid too. ]]

<ahem>

Apologies to all; you know how procmail works; that's why I changed the
subject line.

[[ at least I set the Reply-To: !!! ]]

Yes, to an address I can't get to. Thank you so much.

[ On Monday, January 29, 2001 at 10:33:34 (-0500), Jay R. Ashworth wrote: ]
> Subject: Re: Greg, you're tryin' too hard
>
> If a A record with no MX record was A Bad Thing, sendmail, postfix, and
> M-Sexchange would no doubt have quit delivering to them years ago.

Postfix, Exim, *and* Smail all include the ability to do identical (or
at least very similar) checks on the SMTP protocol commands and
parameters.

I was discussing default configurations, obviously.

But you've yet to justify why an A record isn't enough to deliver
mail.

Folks like me who don't like spam yet seem to get a lot of it targetted
at them (and/or their domain -- it was a good idea at the time, before
the Internet took off! :-), are entirely likely to enable those checks,
which means folks who don't pay attention to the details in their mailer
and DNS configurations will lose.

I don't *do* the mailer configurations for the Freenet; I'm a Usenet
guy.

I don't care if one or two people can't send me e-mail so long as the
majority works (and let me tell you, the majority certainly works!) --
that's their problem, not mine.

Well, no, it' doesn't work that way. If you can't justify it under the
published standards, then it doesn't *matter* what quantity of
connections it breaks, it is *still* broken.

Period. End of report.

                                Unless your mailer is listed in one of
the RBLs, I'm not going to permanently block your e-mail if you're
willing to fix your configurations.

I would be willing to trouble the guy whose job that is if you
presented any reasonable evidence that there is "fixing" necessary; ie:
that there's anything "broken". To date, I have seen no unequivocal
evidence that this is so.

> BTW, Greg: On my carbons to your two other addresses? The envelope
> addresses *weren't* *mine*: you were being overly picky on the *body*
> *address*. [ British cuss word elided to make Merit happy ]

That would be magic beyond my capabilities since my mailer cannot look
in the body of the message (at least not yet).

*Excuse me*? An MTA that can't look in the body of a message?

Can I have a hit, too?

                                                If you're getting
bounces from my mailer when you 'CC' another of my addresses then it's
because your SMTP envelope sender address is bogus. Fix it. I'm not
even going to bother looking in my logs to see just how bogus it is and
recommend a way to fix it.

I CC'd all three of them; the envelope addresses on your planix and acm
forwards should be *those machines* addresses. If they're not, then
something *is* broken, and it's not within my power to fix.

No?

You know, I hate this sort of situation. I have two choices: shut up,
fail to defend my opinion, and hope everyone realized the problem is
yours... or reply in the only manner you've carefully limited me to,
and annoy everyone.

Thanks, Greg. I really appreciate it. I've gotten read off by Susan
over you twice already, too. I knew that I shouldn't have bothered to
reply to your original message. I knew it.

Document your assertions, chapter and verse, or don't bother to reply
to this message, 'k?

Cheers,
-- jra

7

I vote option A. It's what a mature person would do.
(It's also what I'd do, so I guess that doesn't mean much...)

Matthew Devney
Teamsphere Interactive