Internet Area P. Vixie
DNSIND Working Group Vixie Enterprises
<draft-ietf-dnsind-notify-01.txt> 24 March 1995
Updates: RFC 1035
Notify: a mechanism for prompt notification of authority zone changes
Status of this Memo
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Abstract
This draft describes a new DNS opcode, NOTIFY, by which a master
server advises a set of slave servers that the master's data has been
changed and that a query should be initiated to discover the new
data.
0. Rationale and Scope
Slow propagation of new and changed data in a DNS zone can be due to
a zone's relatively long refresh times. Longer refresh times are
beneficial in that they reduce load on the master servers, but that
benefit comes at the cost of having changes not become visible to DNS
clients until a sometimes inconvenient interval has elapsed.
The Notify DNS message allows master servers to inform slave servers
when data have changed, an interrupt as opposed to poll model, which
it is hoped will reduce propagation delay while not unduly increasing
the masters' load.
This document defines a new DNS opcode called NOTIFY whose numeric
value is four (4). All fields not otherwise specified must contain
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binary zero, and implementations must ignore any request or response
packets where this is not the case.
This document intentionally gives more definition to the roles of DNS
master and slave servers, their enumeration in NS RRs, and the SOA
MNAME field. In that sense, this document can be considered an
addendum to RFC 1035.
1. NOTIFY Message
When a master has updated one or more RRs in which slave servers may
be interested, the master may send the changed RR's name, type, and
optionally, new RDATA(s), to each known slave server using a best
efforts protocol based on the NOTIFY opcode.
NOTIFY is similar to QUERY in that it has an initiator packet with QR
``set'' and a response packet with QR ``clear''. The response packet
contains no useful information, but its reception by the master is a
hint that the slave has received the NOTIFY and that the master can
remove the slave from any retry queue for this NOTIFY event.
A master repeatedly sends NOTIFY to a slave until either too many
copies have been sent (a ``timeout'') or until a NOTIFY-QR is
received from the slave with a matching query ID, QNAME, and IP
source address. The interval between retransmissions, and the total
number of retransmissions, should be operational parameters
specifiable by the name server administrator, perhaps on a per-zone
basis. Reasonable defaults are a 60 second interval and 5 attempts.
It is also reasonable to use additive or exponential backoff for the
retry interval.
A NOTIFY packet has QCOUNT>0, ANCOUNT>=0, AUCOUNT=ADCOUNT=0. If
ANCOUNT is nonzero, then the answer section represents an unsecure
hint at the new RR set for this <QNAME,QCLASS,QTYPE>. A slave
receiving such an update is free to treat equivilence of this answer
section with its local data as a ``no further work needs to be done''
indication; if ANCOUNT=0 or the answer section is present and differs
from the slave's local data, then the slave is required to query its
defined masters to retrieve the new data. In no case shall the
answer section of a NOTIFY-!QR be used to update a slave's local
data, or to indicate that a zone transfer needs to be undertaken, or
to change the slave's zone refresh timers. Only a ``data present;
data same'' condition can lead a slave to act differently based on a
NOTIFY-!QR answer section.
In the future, it is expected that this specification will be amended
such that AUCOUNT or ADCOUNT may be allowed to be nonzero, to
indicate that the new data is signed and secure, and can therefore be
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trusted. Until that work has been completed and a standard has been
made, any packet with AUCOUNT<>0 or ADCOUNT<>0 must be ignored by any
server receiving it.
NOTE
There is at this time no specification for incremental
updates; the slave servers are NOT free to overlay a
previous AXFR's data with data from a non-AXFR QUERY, even
if that QUERY occurred as a result of a NOTIFY and the
response to the QUERY is authoritative. NOTIFY may be the
basis on which incremental updates are specified, but at
this time it is only an ``update hint.''
If a slave receives a NOTIFY request from a host which is not listed
in the slave's static list of masters for the zone containing the
QNAME, it must ignore the request and may log an error in its
operations log. Implementations must also ignore NOTIFY requests
that come from a UDP port other than the DNS port (53), as these are
by definition not from another name server.
The only useful hint at this time is that the SOA RR has changed.
Upon completion of a NOTIFY transaction for QTYPE=SOA, the slave
should behave as though the zone given in the QNAME had reached its
REFRESH interval [see RFC 1035], i.e., it should query the master
that sent the NOTIFY request, asking for the same QTYPE and QNAME as
were given in the NOTIFY request. If an answer comes, and the SOA RR
has a newer serial number than the slave's current copy of the zone,
then a zone transfer should be initiated.
2. Some Definitions and Two Requirements
Definition: a Master Server is any authoritative server configured
to be the source of AXFR from one or more slave servers. It is
named in an NS RR for the zone.
Definition: a Slave Server is a quasi-authoritative server which
uses AXFR to retrieve the zone. All slave servers are named in
the NS RRs for the zone. Slaves which use AXFR to retrieve a
zone, and which respect the SOA timeouts, but which are not
listed in the zone's NS RR set, are ``unregistered''.
Unregistered slaves are sometimes used to hot-wire a cache, and
are outside the scope of the DNS prototols, but NOTIFY defines
optional support for them. Note that a server is not, in the
strict RFC 1035 sense of the term, ``authoritative'' for a zones
it loads via AXFR, unless it is listed in the zone's NS RR set.
The question of whether such servers should set the AA bit on
responses they generate from such data, remains open.
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Definition: the Primary Master Server is the master server at the
root of the AXFR dependency graph. The primary master is named
in the zone's SOA MNAME field and by an NS RR. The source of
the primary master's zone data is external to the DNS and is not
a formal concern of this document.
Requirement: for a zone to make use of the NOTIFY protocol, its
servers must be organized into a dependency graph such that
there is a primary master, and all other servers must use AXFR
either from the primary master or from some slave which is also
a master. A slave which is also a master is referred to later
in this document as a ``slave-master''. No loops are permitted
in the AXFR dependency graph.
Requirement: for a zone to make use of the NOTIFY protocol, all
servers named in the zone's NS RR set (under the delegation
point) must use AXFR to do zone updates, or, if some other
protocol is used (e.g., FTP or NFS), it must simulate the retry
and refresh semantics of SOA/AXFR.
3. Semantic Details
Master servers should maintain a list of slaves which have queried
the SOA of the zone within the last SOA REFRESH interval. On a best
efforts basis, NOTIFY requests should be sent to each slave server
address whose last successful query for the changed RR's name and
type was within that interval. Note that queries from UDP ports
other than the DNS service port (53) are not subject to this
requirement, since they cannot (by definition) be from other name
servers.
In a deep tree where some slaves AXFR new zones from other slaves, it
can happen that some slaves will receive multiple NOTIFYs of the same
RR change: one from the primary master, and one from each slave-
master from which it has requested this RR's name and type within the
last SOA REFRESH interval. The protocol supports this multiplicity
by requiring that NOTIFY be sent by a slave-master only AFTER it has
updated the RR. With an SOA NOTIFY, the RR can only change after a
subsequent AXFR. Thus, barring delivery reordering, the last NOTIFY
any slave receives will be the one indicating the latest change.
Since a slave always requests SOAs and AXFRs only from its locally
designated masters, it will have an opportunity to retry its SOA
query after its masters have completed each zone update.
If a master server seeks to avoid causing a large number of
simultaneous outbound zone transfers, it may delay for an arbitrary
length of time before sending a NOTIFY message to any given slave.
It is expected that the time will be chosen at random, so that each
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slave will begin its transfer at a unique time, perhaps with some
weighting so that pending outbound NOTIFY's are more likely to be
sent out whenever a zone transfer completes. The delay shall not in
any case be longer than the SOA REFRESH time, and should be a
parameter that each primary master name server can specify, perhaps
on a per-zone basis. Random delays of between 30 and 60 seconds
would seem adequate if the servers share a LAN and the zones are less
than a megabyte in size.
A slave which receives a valid NOTIFY should defer action on any
subsequent NOTIFY with the same <QNAME,QCLASS,QTYPE> until it has
completed the transaction begun by the first NOTIFY. This duplicate
rejection is necessary to avoid having multiplicitous notifications
lead to pummeling the master server.
The rest of this section is concerned only with SOA NOTIFY.
3.a. Zone has Updated on Primary Master
Primary master sends a NOTIFY request to all servers named in the NS
RR, except the one that is also named in the SOA MNAME, and
optionally to all name servers which have queried for this SOA within
the last SOA REFRESH interval. The NOTIFY has the following
characteristics:
query ID: (new)
op: NOTIFY
resp: NOERROR
flags: AA
qcount: 1
qname: (zone name)
qclass: C_IN
qtype: T_SOA
ancount, aucount, adcount: 0
Note that setting any flag other than AA should cause slave servers
to ignore this query. Only AA is defined, the others all must
contain binary zero.
3.a.1. Zone has Updated on Slave-Master
As above in 3.a, except that only those authoritative name servers
(i.e., those listed in the zone's NS RR set) which have queried for
this name and type within the SOA REFRESH interval need to be
notified. Optionally, the slave-master may send to all servers which
have sent such recent queries, without regard to whether they are
listed in the zone's NS RR set.
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3.b. Slave Receives a NOTIFY Packet from a Master
When a slave server receives a NOTIFY request from one of its locally
designated masters for the zone enclosing the given QNAME, with
QTYPE=SOA and !QR, it should enter the state it would if the zone's
refresh timer had expired. It will also send a NOTIFY response back
to the NOTIFY request's source, with the following characteristics:
query ID: (same)
op: NOTIFY
resp: NOERROR
flags: QR AA
qcount: 1
qname: (zone name)
qclass: C_IN
qtype: T_SOA
ancount, aucount, adcount: 0
Note that this is intentionally identical to the NOTIFY request,
except that the QR bit is also set. Note, also, that the query ID
must be the same as was received in the NOTIFY request.
3.c. Master Receives a NOTIFY-QR Packet from Slave
When a master server receives a NOTIFY packet (with QR), it deletes
this query from the retry queue, thus completing the ``notification
process'' of ``this'' RR change to ``that'' server.
Security Considerations
DNS security is being considered overall by the DNSSEC working group.
We believe that the NOTIFY operation's only security considerations
are (A) that a previous SOA query can optionally cause a master to
NOTIFY a false slave, and (B) that a NOTIFY request with a forged
IP/UDP source address can cause a slave to send spurious SOA queries
to its masters, leading to the possibility of a benign denial of
service attack if the forged requests are received very often.
Author's Address
Paul Vixie
Vixie Enterprises
Star Route Box 159A
Woodside, CA 94062
Phone: +1 415 747 0204
E-Mail: paul@vix.com
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