Deprecation notice force BIND 9.20+: "rrset-order fixed" and "sortlist"

[G.W. Haywood]

Hi there,

On Fri, 1 Mar 2024, Matus UHLAR wrote:
> On 01.03.24 08:24, Ond?ej Sur? wrote:
> > The "sortlist" option allows to define a complicated rules when and
> > how to reorder the resource records in the responses. The same
> > caveats as with the "rrset-order" apply - relying on any specific
> > order of resource records in the DNS responses is wrong.
> >
> > We are not aware of any other (major) DNS server that would have
> > similar behaviour as this was never specified in the DNS protocol.
> > If you know of any software or hardware relying on any specific
> > order of the resource records in the DNS messages, it needs to
> > be reported as a bug to the respective vendor.
> 
> I don't know about _requirement_, but I have used this option as poor 
> man's way to implement geographically local IP addresses
> - to anyone return topologically closer IP addresses first, others next.

Maybe I need more of my morning $beverage but this sort of thing seems
to me to militate against other - existing - efficiency mechanisms.

Network performance isn't just about topology, there are things like
performance and load to consider.  Might your tweaked responses just
send clients to a nearby but tragically overloaded server?

My preference would be to let those people whose job it is to think
about this stuff - which, reading this list, clearly they do - get on
with their job.

Observations welcome of course.

-- 

73,
Ged.