lateral NS delegation

[Joseph S D Yao]

> I was wondering if returning the NS records would constitute an "answer".

No.  It already  h a s  the NS records.  It will not ask for any more.

> > No hemming and hawing and asking other servers behind your back.  You
> > must have that information on hand.
> 
> Then why would a subdomain work?  If you have "foo.com" delegated to
> your servers, and "sub.foo.com" delegated elsewhere, queries for
> "sub.foo.com" will come to your server first, where "you are expected to
> have the answers for that domain", yet all you return are the NS records
> for where "sub.foo.com" can be found?

If you are the server for "foo.com", but not for "sub.foo.com", then
nowhere does it say that you ARE the server for "sub.foo.com".  You are
not only within your rights, but you have to tell the poor seeker after
truth where the name server for "sub.foo.com" is.

This is quite different from the case where the seeker has been told
that YOU are IT.  YOU are the ONE.  YOU are the AUTHORITY for splendid
shining "foo.com".  And then you go and disappoint the seeker by saying
that you are NOT.  The seeker is disillusioned, and spirals down into a
dismal despairing cacophony of failure.

> > Is there a reason you couldn't be a "slave" for the domain with
> > "ns1.otherfoo.com" as the master?  Then that machine will maintain the
> > master data, but your machine will have it on hand for when it's needed.
> 
> That is the way we currently have it set up.  

OK, good.  Keep it up.  ;-)

--
Joe Yao				jsdy at cospo.osis.gov - Joseph S. D. Yao
COSPO/OSIS Computer Support					EMT-B
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
This message is not an official statement of COSPO policies.