Community consensus report on DNS WG structures at IETF
draft-hardaker-dns-wgs-at-ietf-00

Domain Name System                                           W. Hardaker
Internet-Draft                                              Google, Inc.
Intended status: Informational                                  L. Liman
Expires: 14 August 2026                                           Netnod
                                                                J. Abley
                                                              Cloudflare
                                                        10 February 2026

        Community consensus report on DNS WG structures at IETF
                   draft-hardaker-dns-wgs-at-ietf-00

Abstract

   There has been an increasing level of discussion within the IETF
   about the best Working Group (WG) structures for handling the wide
   array of DNS work being conducted within the IETF.  Wes Hardaker was
   asked to gather information from the community at large through
   email, hallway discussions, and meetings and create a small team to
   discuss potential structural changes to be shared with the community.
   This document is the result of that effort.

About This Document

   This note is to be removed before publishing as an RFC.

   Status information for this document may be found at
   https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-hardaker-dns-wgs-at-ietf/.

   Discussion of this document takes place on the Domain Name System
   Working Group mailing list (mailto:ietf@ietf.org), which is archived
   at https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/browse/ietf/.  Subscribe at
   https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf/.

Status of This Memo

   This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the
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   Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering
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   This Internet-Draft will expire on 14 August 2026.

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (c) 2026 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
   document authors.  All rights reserved.

   This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
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Table of Contents

   1.  Introduction  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   2
   2.  Findings  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
   3.  Recommendations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
     3.1.  Example Dispatch Scenarios  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7
     3.2.  Suggestions that achieved no or only fairly rough
           consensus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7
   4.  Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   8
   5.  IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   8
   Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   8
   Authors' Addresses  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   8

1.  Introduction

   There has been an increasing level of discussion within the IETF
   about the best Working Group (WG) structures for handling the wide
   array of DNS work being conducted within the IETF.  Wes Hardaker was
   asked to gather information from the community at large through
   email, hallway discussions, and meetings and create a small team to
   discuss potential structural changes to be shared with the community.
   This document is the result of that effort.

   The DNS@IETF recommendation small team (which consisted of Wes
   Hardaker, Joe Abley and Lars-Johan Liman) reviewed all materials
   collected in the fall of 2025 about how respondents thought about the
   effectiveness of DNS related WGs.  Material reviewed (118 pages)
   included relevant e-mail, notes, WG/Area recordings.  After review,
   the small team met multiple times in early 2026 to extract consensus
   and recommendations to offer the DNS community and the IESG.

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   This document describes the small team’s findings, recommendations,
   as well as some topics where we did not find consensus or where we
   identified topics for future consideration.

   Note: we use a few new working group names below, but recognize both
   these recommendations and these not-yet-existing working group names
   are subject to change and thus should be considered placeholders.

2.  Findings

   The small team found some clear points of consensus points within the
   collected opinions.  These findings were later distilled into
   recommendations (Section 3).

   *  A DNSDISPATCH mechanism would be beneficial for deciding where and
      how new work should be formed.

      -  Working groups can then concentrate on the work they are
         chartered for.

      -  Followers know where to follow new works of interest.

      -  A downside is a potential slow down of new work, and an
         increase in agenda time.

   *  Creating two groups, one for operations and one for protocol
      development, would be helpful.

      -  One would concentrate on operations and hopefully streamline
         the process to get from drafts to RFCs.

      -  One would concentrate on longer term protocol development
         efforts, potentially in a higher-volume discussion.

      -  A downside discussed is that some people would need to attend
         and participate in both groups anyway.  Though this is clear
         for some IETF participants, there were indications it doesn’t
         apply to everyone.  Some may also be able to concentrate fully
         on one, and merely watch the other.

   *  No structure can solve the “human problems”.

      -  It is still up to the area directors and chairs to deal with
         disagreements of all kinds.

      -  This includes how and where work is handled in more nuanced
         cases.

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      -  WG chairs need to be supported in handling these situations.

      -  WG chairs MUST coordinate within and between groups and discuss
         DNS@IETF wide current topics of concern with each other and
         their ADs.

   *  Narrow chartered working groups are necessary for more challenging
      development problems

      -  DELEG and ADD being two examples, with DELEG being an
         especially agreed-upon example of an that needed a separated,
         dedicated working group.

   *  We did not receive feedback indicating that the other DNS groups
      not mentioned here, like DNSSD and REGEXT, need structural
      modifications.

3.  Recommendations

   Based on the findings above, and extrapolating information from
   discussions to derive a suitable path forward, the DNS@IETF small
   team recommends that the area directors considering the following
   advice:

   *  Create a new DNSPROT or similar group for working on protocol
      development and maintenance.

      -  This group should have a fairly wide charter that tasks it with
         work on the DNS protocol itself.

      -  Things requiring special processing rules likely belong in
         DNSDEV

      -  Documentation about protocol semantics should be in DNSDEV

   *  Create a new DNSDEP or similar group for working on protocol
      deployment and operational concerns.  [Really need a better new
      name]

      -  This group should have a fairly wide charter that tasks it with
         work that doesn’t require special processing rules, needs
         algorithms or other simple IANA actions, or are BCPs that
         document existing behaviours.

      -  Examples include algorithm assignments, IANA actions, BCPs,
         etc.

      -  “How you use the protocol”

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      -  Alg roles, bcps, split horizon, zone cut to nowhere

   *  Work toward closing DNSOP in order to properly signal the change

      -  Keep it open and functional until all current work is finished

      -  Some work already in progress in DNSOP could move to DNSPROT or
         DNSDEP where work would continue, at the discretion of the
         authors and chairs

   *  Create a DNSDISPATCH group for providing guidance to authors about
      where new DNS work should be conducted.

      -  To avoid introducing delays and agenda constraints, this group
         should conduct its work almost entirely over a mailing list
         with only difficult cases requiring interim or, worst case, in-
         person meeting time.  Ideally, in-person meetings should be
         rare.

      -  DNSDISPATCH can recommend dispatching work to dnsdev/dnsops/AD-
         sponsored/another-WG/BOF/ISE.

      -  DNSDISPATCH may decline to provide a recommendation for
         documents that are not within scope, for example.

      -  Chairs of the group need to be strict in enforcing and carrying
         out its objective.

      -  The DNSDISPATCH group will not prioritize work within the other
         groups, and its dispatch decisions cannot result in automatic
         adoption.

      -  A significant portion of submissions to DNSDISPTACH can likely
         be handled quickly and efficiently.

      -  The DNSDISPATCH chairs should require that documents clearly
         articulate the problem space and proposed solution before
         consideration.

      -  The DNS directorate is a resource available to the DNSDISPATCH
         working group, just as it is available to other working groups.

      -  The dispatch group might use a pool of willing shepherds to
         assist the chairs and authors with process related help for
         incoming documents.

      -  The dispatch group will make informed recommendations to
         document authors about where to take their work

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         o  The output of a dispatch discussion should include a short
            shepherd write up (perhaps a paragraph in length)

            +  Light weight write ups that are sent to the mailing list
               for archiving.  This should not require datatracker
               changes.

            +  DNSDISPATCH chairs should create a light template text as
               a boiler plate to be used by most cases.

         o  DNS WGs MAY require in their charter that new work first
            gets a dispatch suggestion before consideration in their WG.

         o  After a dispatch, document authors are encouraged to follow
            the recommendation and approach the WG chairs with a follow-
            on request (including but not limited to adoption requests).

         o  Each group will continue to follow its own processes for
            formal adoption.

      -  The chairs of the DNSDISPATCH group should work closely with
         the chairs of the other groups.  They may need to work together
         for handling more difficult topics and to collaborate on advice
         or questions for the DNSDISPATCH WG participants.

   *  Group management is expected to be significantly different in each
      of these groups.

      -  With an effective split in functionality, it allows each group
         to have different forms of execution, meeting, progression, and
         publication requirement strategies.

      -  For example, some groups may require running code, while others
         may not.

   *  Documents may occasionally (rarely we hope) need to move after
      being dispatched when the problem scope changes during its
      development and refinement.

      -  For example, problems that become large may need to move to a
         new group.

      -  Sometimes, however, the decision will be wrong but might as
         well stay in the current group.

      -  The area director and WG chairs will need to handle this (rare)
         problem on a case by case basis.

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3.1.  Example Dispatch Scenarios

   The small team recognized that some examples might be helpful in
   better understanding how the envisioned DNSDISPATCH group might
   process incoming work.  As such, we came up with three example
   scenarios to highlight how we envision some workflows might happen.

   1.  Maxwell Coulomb writes a document that describes a new way that
       DNS can be used by DHCP clients.  They take this document to
       DNSDISPATCH where, after some discussion including references to
       other discussions in DHCP working groups, the chairs post a
       recommendation drawn from consensus to the list saying that in
       their opinion the best DNS working group for this document would
       be DNSDEP.  Maxwell then approaches the DNSDEP chairs by sending
       a message to the chairs that includes a link to the DNSDISPATCH
       recommendation.  The chairs review and decide that this is a good
       candidate document for DNSDEP to consider and send a request for
       comment to the DNSDEP mailing list.

   2.  Marie Ampère writes a document that describes a new protocol for
       encoding video into linked, short ASCII messages, including
       examples of how this allows video to be published in the DNS.
       They take this document to DNSDISPATCH where, after some
       discussion, the chairs post a recommendation that this is not a
       good fit for any DNS working group since it does not really
       represent DNS-specific work.  Thus, the chairs decline to provide
       a recommendation.

   3.  Marmaduke Nxdomain writes a document in response to some
       operational problems that have been discussed in another forum,
       proposing some changes to DNS best practices to avoid such
       failures.  After some discussion, including references to
       presentations and related observations surfaced in a recent DNS-
       OARC meeting, the chairs decide that this is a good candidate
       document for DNSDEP but that the document would benefit from some
       restructuring and rewriting first so that the substantive issues
       can be better considered in the working group.  The chairs
       solicit a volunteer shepherd to help Marmaduke with the next
       steps.  The shepherd helps Marmaduke update the text and later
       discuss the document with the DNSDEP chairs, including a
       reference to the DISDISPATCH recommendation.

3.2.  Suggestions that achieved no or only fairly rough consensus

   *  Always requiring running code.

      -  Running code before adoption definitely did not have consensus.

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      -  Running code before publication had generally rough consensus.

      -  Based on this, we believe each group will need to make their
         own decision on this matter as suggested above.

   *  BCP documentation is an open question about where best to develop
      them.

      -  Some believe operational groups like DNS-OARC should drive BCP
         development.

      -  There is rough consensus that publication of BCPs should remain
         in the IETF.

      -  It may be that interim meetings held in conjunction with
         external conferences would be a good idea.

4.  Security Considerations

   None

5.  IANA Considerations

   None

Acknowledgments

   Wes greatly thanks the small team members (Lars-Johan Liman and Joe
   Abley) he corralled into helping him consume all of the review
   content, and for the insights they brought to the discussion about
   this problem space.

   A significant number of people offered their opinions on this subject
   and we greatly appreciate everyone's time, energy and desire to help
   the IETF be as efficient as possible in the DNS space.

Authors' Addresses

   Wes Hardaker
   Google, Inc.
   Email: ietf@hardakers.net

   Lars-Johan Liman
   Netnod
   Email: liman@netnod.se

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   Joe Abley
   Cloudflare
   Email: jabley@cloudflare.com

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