support for draft-ietf-dnsop-serverid-00.txt

[Edward Lewis <edlewis@arin.net>]

I'm doing some work on lame delegations and am beginning to think 
that there is a strong need to require/recommend that a server 
respond to a liveness query.

The draft 
http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-ietf-dnsop-serverid-00.txt 
suggests something like this.  It calls for a way to identify which 
server is answering a question.  My need is a bit more simple.

I just want to know if the IP address I am testing has a DNS server 
(at port 53).  This need is derived from the last question I posted 
to the list - whether a server is allowed to answer to just a few 
zones and drop all other queries.

The reason this is a problem is - I am testing servers for lameness 
to identify what is the best way to limit the impact of lameness on 
applications (that don't handle lame answers well).  (In other words, 
I'm not doing this for my health.)  In my first runs I would look at 
answers from servers, and if no answer cam back, I would mark the 
server down.

This worked until I ran across an implementation selectively answers 
to queries.

Now my code is testing all zones, even if the servers are "down." 
The result is that the test takes a lot more time.

So, what I would like to see is a simple liveness query - not even a 
"version" or "identity" of the server, but just a query/response that 
behaves like ping. (With attention to the broadcast ping problems.)

This would allow testing to happen faster, and with less impact on 
the network.  I see this as bolstering the ability to troubleshoot 
DNS, i.e., making it more resilient.  I would hope that this addition 
would be acceptable to even the most minimalist implementer out there.
-- 
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Edward Lewis                                          +1-703-227-9854
ARIN Research Engineer