Re: [xri] Designating DNS discovery for non-HTTP URIs

[Peter Davis <peter.davis@neustar.biz>]

On Jan 7, 2009, at 6:40 PM, Eran Hammer-Lahav wrote:

> There seems to be strong resistance in various communities to the  
> idea that
> an HTTP server can speak authoritatively for non-HTTP URIs. There is  
> also
> strong resistance to using DNS as the entry point for resource  
> discovery. At
> the same time, it is clear we need to support non-HTTP URIs and  
> there is
> strong desire to include a DNS flavor.

Can you provide any references to where this resistance is occurring?

> [snip]
>
> But if the resource is not an HTTP resource such as mailto:user@example.com 
> ,
> the consumer must look for a DNS record for the example.com domain
> identifying an HTTP resource using the /site-meta format with the
> Link-Template record. Basically, instead of just doing a GET /site- 
> meta, the
> consumer must first find out where the non-HTTP /site-meta is  
> located. It
> will usually point to /site-meta (the location) but might not.

Why just an HTTP resource for /site-meta? What about XMPP clients?  
should they not be able to retrieve XRDs via xmpp:user@example.com via  
RFC3920 as a stanza?

> This will ensure that the DNS admin has full control over discovery
> information of non-HTTP URIs and not the HTTP admin. But it will  
> also allow
> both HTTP and non-HTTP to use exactly the same /site-meta file and  
> mechanism
> for most use cases.

But for implementations where HTTP is not the predominant protocol,  
thus no HTTP/site-meta would normally exist, should we consider  
supporting other candidate transports for the data?  It strikes me  
that this is unnecessarily limiting.

> The reason the content of the Link-Template isn't placed directly in  
> the DNS
> record is mostly to keep the discovery workflow as uniform as  
> possible, and
> to use DNS in the simplest way to increase adoption.

But does add an extra step in the resolution of the XRD, which should  
be considered against the gains one gets out of such uniformity.

> Thoughts?

Generally, I agree with this approach modulo my comments.
>
>
> EHL
>
>
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Peter Davis: NeuStar, Inc.
Director & Distinguished Member of the Technical Staff
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