RE: Gabe's feedback and reference "backtracking"

Do we really want to stop resolution if one REF is unresponsive? It seems to me to be a good idea to have multiple authority services (either via SEPs, URIs or REFs) in case one is having a problem. It seems to me the resolver should do what ever it can, within reason, to locate the answer for a request. In DNS a domain can have upto 13 nameservers. If one is not responding for what ever reason the resolver tries another.

I-Name: =les.chasen

From: Drummond Reed [mailto:drummond.reed@gmail.com]
Sent: Friday, January 20, 2006 11:33 AM
To: gwachob@visa.com; steven.churchill@ootao.com; Chasen, Les; Tan, William
Cc: drummond.reed@cordance.net
Subject: Gabe's feedback and reference "backtracking"

[I'm sending from my Gmail account because it's clear most of my regular SMTP outgoing email is not getting out from China. Please Reply All so I get the reply via my Cordance account because incoming email seems to work fine.]

Gabe and Res Editor's:

Note that since I can only send from Gmail, I can't send this to the list. One of you is welcome to forward this to the list.

I just went over Gabe's comments. Fantastic stuff. There's many that we need to go over (I *really* wish I could be on the call Friday morning but I gotta go to bed now...). Anyway, the single biggest issue is the one of whether a resolver needs to do "backtracking" of references (as currently indicated in ED 04) or whether, as Gabe recommends, the resolver should just stop and report an error if it gets an error.

I tend to agree with Gabe on this with one exception: I think that *within a single service endpoint* if the resolver gets a network error on one URI and more then one URI is supplied, the resolver should try the next highest priority URI, and so on. Same for the next highest priority service if there is >1 Service of that type in the XRD.

But I agree with Gabe that if a resolver follows a reference and hits an error, it should not need to "backtrack" but just stop and report the error.

If everyone agrees to that on today's call, please publish it in the minutes and I'll update the flowcharts to match (and start working on ED 05 to make those changes.)

All of Gabe's other comments made sense to me. Please do record in the minutes any others that the editors have consensus on and I'll start getting those into ED 05. I'd then like to send it to Gabe (or ???) to take the pen and make whatever other changes we feel are necessary before publishing it as WD 10.

=Drummond

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