Internet Engineering Task Force S. Cheshire
Internet-Draft Apple Inc.
Intended status: Standards Track November 16, 2016
Expires: May 20, 2017
Hybrid Unicast/Multicast DNS-Based Service Discovery
draft-ietf-dnssd-hybrid-05
Abstract
This document specifies a mechanism that uses Multicast DNS to
automatically populate the wide-area unicast Domain Name System
namespace with records describing devices and services found on the
local link.
Status of this Memo
This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the
provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.
Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering
Task Force (IETF). Note that other groups may also distribute
working documents as Internet-Drafts. The list of current Internet-
Drafts is at http://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/current/.
Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months
and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any
time. It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference
material or to cite them other than as "work in progress."
This Internet-Draft will expire on May 20, 2017.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (c) 2016 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
Provisions Relating to IETF Documents
(http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of
publication of this document. Please review these documents
carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect
to this document. Code Components extracted from this document must
include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of
the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as
described in the Simplified BSD License.
Cheshire Expires May 20, 2017 [Page 1]
Internet-Draft Hybrid uDNS/mDNS Service Discovery November 2016
Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2. Operational Analogy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
3. Conventions and Terminology Used in this Document . . . . . . 7
4. Compatibility Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
5. Hybrid Proxy Operation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
5.1. Delegated Subdomain for Service Discovery Records . . . . 9
5.2. Domain Enumeration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
5.2.1. Domain Enumeration via Unicast Queries . . . . . . . . 10
5.2.2. Domain Enumeration via Multicast Queries . . . . . . . 12
5.3. Delegated Subdomain for LDH Host Names . . . . . . . . . . 13
5.4. Delegated Subdomain for Reverse Mapping . . . . . . . . . 15
5.5. Data Translation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
5.5.1. DNS TTL limiting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
5.5.2. Suppressing Unusable Records . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
5.5.3. NSEC and NSEC3 queries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
5.5.4. Text Encoding Translation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
5.5.5. Application-Specific Data Translation . . . . . . . . 18
5.6. Answer Aggregation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
6. Administrative DNS Records . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
6.1. DNS SOA (Start of Authority) Record . . . . . . . . . . . 23
6.2. DNS NS Records . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
6.3. DNS SRV Records . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
7. DNSSEC Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
7.1. On-line signing only . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
7.2. NSEC and NSEC3 Records . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
8. IPv6 Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
9. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
9.1. Authenticity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
9.2. Privacy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
9.3. Denial of Service . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
10. Intelectual Property Rights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
11. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
12. Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
13. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
13.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
13.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
Appendix A. Implementation Status . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
A.1. Already Implemented and Deployed . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
A.2. Already Implemented . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
A.3. Partially Implemented . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
A.4. Not Yet Implemented . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
Author's Address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
Cheshire Expires May 20, 2017 [Page 2]
Internet-Draft Hybrid uDNS/mDNS Service Discovery November 2016
1. Introduction
Multicast DNS [RFC6762] and its companion technology DNS-based
Service Discovery [RFC6763] were created to provide IP networking
with the ease-of-use and autoconfiguration for which AppleTalk was
well known [RFC6760] [ZC].
For a small home network consisting of just a single link (or a few
physical links bridged together to appear as a single logical link to
IP) Multicast DNS [RFC6762] is sufficient for client devices to look
up the ".local" host names of peers on the same home network, and to
use DNS-Based Service Discovery (DNS-SD) [RFC6763] to discover
services offered on that home network.
For a larger network consisting of multiple links that are
interconnected using IP-layer routing instead of link-layer bridging,
link-local Multicast DNS alone is insufficient because link-local
Multicast DNS packets, by design, are not propagated onto other
links.
Using link-local multicast packets for Multicast DNS was a conscious
design choice [RFC6762]. Even when limited to a single link,
multicast traffic is still generally considered to be more expensive
than unicast, because multicast traffic impacts many devices, instead
of just a single recipient. In addition, with some technologies like
Wi-Fi [802.11], multicast traffic is inherently less efficient and
less reliable than unicast, because Wi-Fi multicast traffic is sent
using the lower data rates, and is not acknowledged. Multiplying the
amount of expensive multicast traffic by flooding it across multiple
links would make the traffic load even worse.
Partitioning the network into many small links curtails the spread of
expensive multicast traffic, but limits the discoverability of
services. Using a very large local link with thousands of hosts
enables better service discovery, but at the cost of larger amounts
of multicast traffic.
Performing DNS-Based Service Discovery using purely Unicast DNS is
more efficient and doesn't require excessively large multicast
domains, but requires that the relevant data be available in the
Unicast DNS namespace. The Unicast DNS namespace in question could
fall within a traditionally assigned globally unique domain name, or
could use a private local unicast domain name such as ".home"
[HOME].)
In the DNS-SD specification [RFC6763], Section 10 ("Populating the
DNS with Information") discusses various possible ways that a
service's PTR, SRV, TXT and address records can make their way into
Cheshire Expires May 20, 2017 [Page 3]
Internet-Draft Hybrid uDNS/mDNS Service Discovery November 2016
the Unicast DNS namespace, including manual zone file configuration
[RFC1034] [RFC1035], DNS Update [RFC2136] [RFC3007] and proxies of
various kinds.
Making the relevant data available in the Unicast DNS namespace by
manual DNS configuration (as has been done for many years at IETF
meetings to advertise the IETF Terminal Room printer) is labor
intensive, error prone, and requires a reasonable degree of DNS
expertise.
Populating the Unicast DNS namespace via DNS Update by the devices
offering the services themselves requires configuration of DNS Update
keys on those devices, which has proven onerous and impractical for
simple devices like printers and network cameras.
Hence, to facilitate efficient and reliable DNS-Based Service
Discovery, a compromise is needed that combines the ease-of-use of
Multicast DNS with the efficiency and scalability of Unicast DNS.
This document specifies a type of proxy called a Hybrid Proxy that
uses Multicast DNS [RFC6762] to discover Multicast DNS records on its
local link, and makes corresponding DNS records visible in the
Unicast DNS namespace.
In principle, similar mechanisms could be defined using other local
service discovery protocols, to discover local information and then
make corresponding DNS records visible in the Unicast DNS namespace.
Such mechanisms for other local service discovery protocols could be
addressed in future documents.
The design of the Hybrid Proxy is guided by the previously published
Requirements for Scalable DNS-Based Service [RFC7558].
In simple terms, a descriptive DNS name is chosen for each link in an
organization. Using a DNS NS record, responsibility for that DNS
name is delegated to a Hybrid Proxy physically attached to that link.
Now, when a remote client issues a unicast query for a name falling
within the delegated subdomain, the normal DNS delegation mechanism
results in the unicast query arriving at the Hybrid Proxy, since it
has been declared authoritative for those names. Now, instead of
consulting a textual zone file on disk to discover the answer to the
query, as a traditional DNS server would, a Hybrid Proxy consults its
local link, using Multicast DNS, to find the answer to the question.
For fault tolerance reasons there may be more than one Hybrid Proxy
serving a given link.
Note that the Hybrid Proxy uses a "pull" model. The local link is
Cheshire Expires May 20, 2017 [Page 4]
Internet-Draft Hybrid uDNS/mDNS Service Discovery November 2016
not queried using Multicast DNS until a remote client has requested
that data. In the idle state, in the absence of client requests, the
Hybrid Proxy sends no packets and imposes no burden on the network.
It operates purely "on demand".
An alternative proposal has been a proxy that performs DNS updates to
a remote DNS server on behalf of the Multicast DNS devices on the
local network. The difficulty of this is that the proxy would have
to be issuing all possible Multicast DNS queries all the time, to
discover all the answers it needed to push up to the remote DNS
server using DNS Update. It would thus generate very high load on
the network continuously, even when there were no clients with any
interest in that data.
Hence, having a model where the query comes to the Hybrid Proxy is
much more efficient than a model where the Hybrid Proxy pushes the
answers out to some other remote DNS server.
A client can send queries to the Hybrid Proxy in the form of
traditional DNS queries, or by making a DNS Push Notification
subscription [I-D.ietf-dnssd-push].
Cheshire Expires May 20, 2017 [Page 5]
Internet-Draft Hybrid uDNS/mDNS Service Discovery November 2016
2. Operational Analogy
A Hybrid Proxy does not operate as a multicast relay, or multicast
forwarder. There is no danger of multicast forwarding loops that
result in traffic storms, because no multicast packets are forwarded.
A Hybrid Proxy operates as a *proxy* for a remote client, performing
queries on its behalf and reporting the results back.
A reasonable analogy would be making a telephone call to a colleague
at your workplace and saying, "I'm out of the office right now.
Would you mind bringing up a printer browser window and telling me
the names of the printers you see?" That entails no risk of a
forwarding loop causing a traffic storm, because no multicast packets
are sent over the telephone call.
A similar analogy, instead of enlisting another human being to
initiate the service discovery operation on your behalf, would be to
log into your own desktop work computer using screen sharing, and
then run the printer browser yourself to see the list of printers.
Or log in using ssh and type "dns-sd -B _ipp._tcp" and observe the
list of discovered printer names. In neither case is there any risk
of a forwarding loop causing a traffic storm, because no multicast
packets are being sent over the screen sharing or ssh connection.
The Hybrid Proxy provides another way of performing remote queries,
just using a different protocol instead of screen sharing or ssh.
When the Hybrid Proxy software performs Multicast DNS operations, the
exact same Multicast DNS caching mechanisms are applied as when any
other client software on that Hybrid Proxy device performs Multicast
DNS operations, whether that be running a printer browser client
locally, or a remote user running the printer browser client via a
screen sharing connection, or a remote user logged in via ssh running
a command-line tool like "dns-sd".
Cheshire Expires May 20, 2017 [Page 6]
Internet-Draft Hybrid uDNS/mDNS Service Discovery November 2016
3. Conventions and Terminology Used in this Document
The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
"SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "NOT RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and
"OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in
"Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate Requirement Levels" [RFC2119].
The Hybrid Proxy builds on Multicast DNS, which works between hosts
on the same link. A set of hosts is considered to be "on the same
link" if:
o when any host A from that set sends a packet to any other host B
in that set, using unicast, multicast, or broadcast, the entire
link-layer packet payload arrives unmodified, and
o a broadcast sent over that link by any host from that set of hosts
can be received by every other host in that set
The link-layer *header* may be modified, such as in Token Ring Source
Routing [802.5], but not the link-layer *payload*. In particular, if
any device forwarding a packet modifies any part of the IP header or
IP payload then the packet is no longer considered to be on the same
link. This means that the packet may pass through devices such as
repeaters, bridges, hubs or switches and still be considered to be on
the same link for the purpose of this document, but not through a
device such as an IP router that decrements the IP TTL or otherwise
modifies the IP header.
4. Compatibility Considerations
No changes to existing devices are required to work with a Hybrid
Proxy.
Existing devices that advertise services using Multicast DNS work
with Hybrid Proxy.
Existing clients that support DNS-Based Service Discovery over
Unicast DNS work with Hybrid Proxy. Service Discovery over Unicast
DNS was introduced in Mac OS X 10.4 in April 2005, as is included in
Apple products introduced since then, including iPhone and iPad, as
well as products from other vendors, such as Microsoft Windows 10.
Cheshire Expires May 20, 2017 [Page 7]
Internet-Draft Hybrid uDNS/mDNS Service Discovery November 2016
5. Hybrid Proxy Operation
In a typical configuration, a Hybrid Proxy is configured to be
authoritative [RFC1034] [RFC1035] for four DNS subdomains, and
authority for these subdomains is delegated to it via NS records:
A DNS subdomain for service discovery records.
This subdomain name may contain rich text, including spaces and
other punctuation. This is because this subdomain name is used
only in graphical user interfaces, where rich text is appropriate.
A DNS subdomain for host name records.
This subdomain name SHOULD be limited to letters, digits and
hyphens, to facilitate convenient use of host names in command-
line interfaces.
A DNS subdomain for IPv6 Reverse Mapping records.
This subdomain name will be a name that ends in "ip6.arpa."
A DNS subdomain for IPv4 Reverse Mapping records.
This subdomain name will be a name that ends in "in-addr.arpa."
In an enterprise network the naming and delegation of these
subdomains is typically performed by conscious action of the network
administrator. In a home network naming and delegation would
typically be performed using some automatic configuration mechanism
such as HNCP [RFC7788].
These three varieties of delegated subdomains (service discovery,
host names, and reverse mapping) are described below in sections
Section 5.1, Section 5.3 and Section 5.4.
How a client discovers where to issue its service discovery queries
is described below in section Section 5.2.
Cheshire Expires May 20, 2017 [Page 8]
Internet-Draft Hybrid uDNS/mDNS Service Discovery November 2016
5.1. Delegated Subdomain for Service Discovery Records
In its simplest form, each link in an organization is assigned a
unique Unicast DNS domain name, such as "Building 1.example.com" or
"2nd Floor.Building 3.example.com". Grouping multiple links under a
single Unicast DNS domain name is to be specified in a future
companion document, but for the purposes of this document, assume
that each link has its own unique Unicast DNS domain name. In a
graphical user interface these names are not displayed as strings
with dots as shown above, but something more akin to a typical file
browser graphical user interface (which is harder to illustrate in a
text-only document) showing folders, subfolders and files in a file
system.
+---------------+--------------+-------------+-------------------+
| *example.com* | Building 1 | 1st Floor | Alice's printer |
| | Building 2 | *2nd Floor* | Bob's printer |
| | *Building 3* | 3rd Floor | Charlie's printer |
| | Building 4 | 4th Floor | |
| | Building 5 | | |
| | Building 6 | | |
+---------------+--------------+-------------+-------------------+
Figure 1: Illustrative GUI
Each named link in an organization has one or more Hybrid Proxies
which serves it. This Hybrid Proxy function for each link could be
performed by a device like a router or switch that is physically
attached to that link. In the parent domain, NS records are used to
delegate ownership of each defined link name
(e.g., "Building 1.example.com") to the one or more Hybrid Proxies
that serve the named link. In other words, the Hybrid Proxies are
the authoritative name servers for that subdomain.
With appropriate VLAN configuration [802.1Q] a single Hybrid Proxy
device could have a logical presence on many links, and serve as the
Hybrid Proxy for all those links. In such a configuration the Hybrid
Proxy device would have a single physical Ethernet [802.3] port,
configured as a VLAN trunk port, which would appear to software on
that device as multiple virtual Ethernet interfaces, one connected to
each of the VLAN links.
When a DNS-SD client issues a Unicast DNS query to discover services
in a particular Unicast DNS subdomain
(e.g., "_printer._tcp.Building 1.example.com. PTR ?") the normal DNS
delegation mechanism results in that query being forwarded until it
reaches the delegated authoritative name server for that subdomain,
namely the Hybrid Proxy on the link in question. Like a conventional
Cheshire Expires May 20, 2017 [Page 9]
Internet-Draft Hybrid uDNS/mDNS Service Discovery November 2016
Unicast DNS server, a Hybrid Proxy implements the usual Unicast DNS
protocol [RFC1034] [RFC1035] over UDP and TCP. However, unlike a
conventional Unicast DNS server that generates answers from the data
in its manually-configured zone file, a Hybrid Proxy generates
answers using Multicast DNS. A Hybrid Proxy does this by consulting
its Multicast DNS cache and/or issuing Multicast DNS queries for the
corresponding Multicast DNS name, type and class, (e.g., in this
case, "_printer._tcp.local. PTR ?"). Then, from the received
Multicast DNS data, the Hybrid Proxy synthesizes the appropriate
Unicast DNS response. How long the Hybrid Proxy should wait to
accumulate Multicast DNS responses is described below in section
Section 5.6.
Naturally, the existing Multicast DNS caching mechanism is used to
minimize unnecessary Multicast DNS queries on the wire. The Hybrid
Proxy is acting as a client of the underlying Multicast DNS
subsystem, and benefits from the same caching and efficiency measures
as any other client using that subsystem.
5.2. Domain Enumeration
A DNS-SD client performs Domain Enumeration [RFC6763] via certain PTR
queries, using both unicast and multicast. If it receives a Domain
Name configuration via DHCP option 15 [RFC2132], then it issues
unicast queries using this domain. It issues unicast queries using
names derived from its IPv6 prefix(es) and IPv4 subnet address(es).
These are described below in Section 5.2.1. It also issues multicast
Domain Enumeration queries in the "local" domain [RFC6762]. These
are described below in Section 5.2.2. The results of all the Domain
Enumeration queries are combined for Service Discovery purposes.
5.2.1. Domain Enumeration via Unicast Queries
The administrator creates Domain Enumeration PTR records [RFC6763] to
inform clients of available service discovery domains, e.g.,:
b._dns-sd._udp.example.com. PTR Building 1.example.com.
PTR Building 2.example.com.
PTR Building 3.example.com.
PTR Building 4.example.com.
db._dns-sd._udp.example.com. PTR Building 1.example.com.
lb._dns-sd._udp.example.com. PTR Building 1.example.com.
The "b" ("browse") records tell the client device the list of
browsing domains to display for the user to select from and the "db"
("default browse") record tells the client device which domain in
Cheshire Expires May 20, 2017 [Page 10]
Internet-Draft Hybrid uDNS/mDNS Service Discovery November 2016
that list should be selected by default. The "lb" ("legacy browse")
record tells the client device which domain to automatically browse
on behalf of applications that don't implement UI for multi-domain
browsing (which is most of them, as of 2015). The "lb" domain is
often the same as the "db" domain, or sometimes the "db" domain plus
one or more others that should be included in the list of automatic
browsing domains for legacy clients.
DNS responses are limited to a maximum size of 65535 bytes. This
limits the maximum number of domains that can be returned for a
Domain Enumeration query, as follows:
A DNS response header is 12 bytes. That's typically followed by a
single qname (up to 256 bytes) plus qtype (2 bytes) and qclass
(2 bytes), leaving 65275 for the Answer Section.
An Answer Section Resource Record consists of:
o Owner name, encoded as a two-byte compression pointer
o Two-byte rrtype (type PTR)
o Two-byte rrclass (class IN)
o Four-byte ttl
o Two-byte rdlength
o rdata (domain name, up to 256 bytes)
This means that each Resource Record in the Answer Section can take
up to 268 bytes total, which means that the Answer Section can
contain, in the worst case, no more than 243 domains.
In a more typical scenario, where the domain names are not all
maximum-sized names, and there is some similarity between names so
that reasonable name compression is possible, each Answer Section
Resource Record may average 140 bytes, which means that the Answer
Section can contain up to 466 domains.
It is anticipated that this should be sufficient for even a large
corporate network or university campus.
Cheshire Expires May 20, 2017 [Page 11]
Internet-Draft Hybrid uDNS/mDNS Service Discovery November 2016
5.2.2. Domain Enumeration via Multicast Queries
Since a Hybrid Proxy exists on many, if not all, the links in an
enterprise, it offers an additional way to provide Domain Enumeration
data for clients.
A Hybrid Proxy can be configured to generate Multicast DNS responses
for the following Multicast DNS Domain Enumeration queries issued by
clients:
b._dns-sd._udp.local. PTR ?
db._dns-sd._udp.local. PTR ?
lb._dns-sd._udp.local. PTR ?
This provides the ability for Hybrid Proxies to indicate recommended
browsing domains to DNS-SD clients on a per-link granularity. In
some enterprises it may be preferable to provide this per-link
configuration data in the form of Hybrid Proxy configuration, rather
than populating the Unicast DNS servers with the same data (in the
"ip6.arpa" or "in-addr.arpa" domains).
Regardless of how the network operator chooses to provide this
configuration data, clients will perform Domain Enumeration via both
unicast and multicast queries, and then combine the results of these
queries.
Cheshire Expires May 20, 2017 [Page 12]
Internet-Draft Hybrid uDNS/mDNS Service Discovery November 2016
5.3. Delegated Subdomain for LDH Host Names
DNS-SD service instance names and domains are allowed to contain
arbitrary Net-Unicode text [RFC5198], encoded as precomposed UTF-8
[RFC3629].
Users typically interact with service discovery software by viewing a
list of discovered service instance names on a display, and selecting
one of them by pointing, touching, or clicking. Similarly, in
software that provides a multi-domain DNS-SD user interface, users
view a list of offered domains on the display and select one of them
by pointing, touching, or clicking. To use a service, users don't
have to remember domain or instance names, or type them; users just
have to be able to recognize what they see on the display and touch
or click on the thing they want.
In contrast, host names are often remembered and typed. Also, host
names have historically been used in command-line interfaces where
spaces can be inconvenient. For this reason, host names have
traditionally been restricted to letters, digits and hyphens (LDH),
with no spaces or other punctuation.
While we still want to allow rich text for DNS-SD service instance
names and domains, it is advisable, for maximum compatibility with
existing usage, to restrict host names to the traditional letter-
digit-hyphen rules. This means that while a service name
"My Printer._ipp._tcp.Building 1.example.com" is acceptable and
desirable (it is displayed in a graphical user interface as an
instance called "My Printer" in the domain "Building 1" at
"example.com"), a host name "My-Printer.Building 1.example.com" is
less desirable (because of the space in "Building 1").
To accomodate this difference in allowable characters, a Hybrid Proxy
SHOULD support having two separate subdomains delegated to it for
each link it serves, one whose name is allowed to contain arbitrary
Net-Unicode text [RFC5198], and a second more constrained subdomain
whose name is restricted to contain only letters, digits, and
hyphens, to be used for host name records (names of 'A' and 'AAAA'
address records).
Cheshire Expires May 20, 2017 [Page 13]
Internet-Draft Hybrid uDNS/mDNS Service Discovery November 2016
For example, a Hybrid Proxy could have the two subdomains
"Building 1.example.com" and "bldg1.example.com" delegated to it.
The Hybrid Proxy would then translate these two Multicast DNS
records:
My Printer._ipp._tcp.local. SRV 0 0 631 prnt.local.
prnt.local. A 203.0.113.2
into Unicast DNS records as follows:
My Printer._ipp._tcp.Building 1.example.com.
SRV 0 0 631 prnt.bldg1.example.com.
prnt.bldg1.example.com. A 203.0.113.2
Note that the SRV record name is translated using the rich-text
domain name ("Building 1.example.com") and the address record name is
translated using the LDH domain ("bldg1.example.com").
A Hybrid Proxy MAY support only a single rich text Net-Unicode
domain, and use that domain for all records, including 'A' and 'AAAA'
address records, but implementers choosing this option should be
aware that this choice may produce host names that are awkward to use
in command-line environments. Whether this is an issue depends on
whether users in the target environment are expected to be using
command-line interfaces.
A Hybrid Proxy MUST NOT be restricted to support only a letter-digit-
hyphen subdomain, because that results in an unnecessarily poor user
experience.
Cheshire Expires May 20, 2017 [Page 14]
Internet-Draft Hybrid uDNS/mDNS Service Discovery November 2016
5.4. Delegated Subdomain for Reverse Mapping
A Hybrid Proxy can facilitate easier management of reverse mapping
domains, particularly for IPv6 addresses where manual management may
be more onerous than it is for IPv4 addresses.
To achieve this, in the parent domain, NS records are used to
delegate ownership of the appropriate reverse mapping domain to the
Hybrid Proxy. In other words, the Hybrid Proxy becomes the
authoritative name server for the reverse mapping domain. For fault
tolerance reasons there may be more than one Hybrid Proxy serving a
given link.
For example, if a given link is using the IPv6 prefix
2001:0DB8:1234:5678/64, then the domain
"8.7.6.5.4.3.2.1.8.b.d.0.1.0.0.2.ip6.arpa" is delegated to the Hybrid
Proxy for that link.
If a given link is using the IPv4 subnet 203.0.113/24, then the
domain "113.0.203.in-addr.arpa" is delegated to the Hybrid Proxy for
that link.
When a reverse mapping query arrives at the Hybrid Proxy, it issues
the identical query on its local link as a Multicast DNS query.
The mechanism to force an apparently unicast name to be resolved
using link-local Multicast DNS varies depending on the API set being
used. For example, in the "/usr/include/dns_sd.h" APIs
(available on macOS, iOS, Microsoft Windows, Linux and Android),
using kDNSServiceFlagsForceMulticast indicates that the
DNSServiceQueryRecord() call should perform the query using Multicast
DNS. Other APIs sets have different ways of forcing multicast
queries. When the host owning that IPv6 or IPv4 address responds
with a name of the form "something.local", the Hybrid Proxy rewrites
that to use its configured LDH host name domain instead of "local",
and returns the response to the caller.
For example, a Hybrid Proxy with the two subdomains
"113.0.203.in-addr.arpa" and "bldg1.example.com" delegated to it
would translate this Multicast DNS record:
2.113.0.203.in-addr.arpa. PTR prnt.local.
into this Unicast DNS response:
2.113.0.203.in-addr.arpa. PTR prnt.bldg1.example.com.
Subsequent queries for the prnt.bldg1.example.com address record,
falling as it does within the bldg1.example.com domain, which is
Cheshire Expires May 20, 2017 [Page 15]
Internet-Draft Hybrid uDNS/mDNS Service Discovery November 2016
delegated to the Hybrid Proxy, will arrive at the Hybrid Proxy, where
they are answered by issuing Multicast DNS queries and using the
received Multicast DNS answers to synthesize Unicast DNS responses,
as described above.
5.5. Data Translation
Generating the appropriate Multicast DNS queries involves, at the
very least, translating from the configured DNS domain
(e.g., "Building 1.example.com") on the Unicast DNS side to "local"
on the Multicast DNS side.
Generating the appropriate Unicast DNS responses involves translating
back from "local" to the configured DNS Unicast domain.
Other beneficial translation and filtering operations are described
below.
5.5.1. DNS TTL limiting
For efficiency, Multicast DNS typically uses moderately high DNS TTL
values. For example, the typical TTL on DNS-SD PTR records is 75
minutes. What makes these moderately high TTLs acceptable is the
cache coherency mechanisms built in to the Multicast DNS protocol
which protect against stale data persisting for too long. When a
service shuts down gracefully, it sends goodbye packets to remove its
PTR records immediately from neighbouring caches. If a service shuts
down abruptly without sending goodbye packets, the Passive
Observation Of Failures (POOF) mechanism described in Section 10.5 of
the Multicast DNS specification [RFC6762] comes into play to purge
the cache of stale data.
A traditional Unicast DNS client on a remote link does not get to
participate in these Multicast DNS cache coherency mechanisms on the
local link. For traditional Unicast DNS queries (those received
without any Long-Lived Query [I-D.sekar-dns-llq] or DNS Push
Notification [I-D.ietf-dnssd-push] option) the DNS TTLs reported in
the resulting Unicast DNS response SHOULD be capped to be no more
than ten seconds.
Similarly, for negative responses, the negative caching TTL indicated
in the SOA record [RFC2308] should also be ten seconds (Section 6.1).
This value of ten seconds is chosen based on user experience
considerations.
For negative caching, suppose a user is attempting to access a remote
device (e.g., a printer), and they are unsuccessful because that
Cheshire Expires May 20, 2017 [Page 16]
Internet-Draft Hybrid uDNS/mDNS Service Discovery November 2016
device is powered off. Suppose they then place a telephone call and
ask for the device to be powered on. We want the device to become
available to the user within a reasonable time period. It is
reasonable to expect it to take on the order of ten seconds for a
simple device with a simple embedded operating system to power on.
Once the device is powered on and has announced its presence on the
network via Multicast DNS, we would like it to take no more than a
further ten seconds for stale negative cache entries to expire from
Unicast DNS caches, making the device available to the user desiring
to access it.
Similar reasoning applies to capping positive TTLs at ten seconds.
In the event of a device moving location, getting a new DHCP address,
or other renumbering events, we would like the updated information to
be available to remote clients in a relatively timely fashion.
However, network administrators should be aware that many recursive
(caching) DNS servers by default are configured to impose a minimum
TTL of 30 seconds. If stale data appears to be persisting in the
network to the extent that it adversely impacts user experience,
network administrators are advised to check the configuration of
their recursive DNS servers.
For received Unicast DNS queries that contain an LLQ or DNS Push
Notification option, the Multicast DNS record's TTL SHOULD be
returned unmodified, because the Push Notification channel exists to
inform the remote client as records come and go. For further details
about Long-Lived Queries, and its newer replacement, DNS Push
Notifications, see Section 5.6.
5.5.2. Suppressing Unusable Records
A Hybrid Proxy SHOULD suppress Unicast DNS answers for records that
are not useful outside the local link. For example, DNS A and AAAA
records for IPv6 link-local addresses [RFC4862] and IPv4 link-local
addresses [RFC3927] SHOULD be suppressed. Similarly, for sites that
have multiple private address realms [RFC1918], in cases where the
Hybrid Proxy can determine that the querying client is in a different
address realm, private addresses MUST NOT be communicated to that
client. IPv6 Unique Local Addresses [RFC4193] SHOULD be suppressed
in cases where the Hybrid Proxy can determine that the querying
client is in a different IPv6 address realm.
By the same logic, DNS SRV records that reference target host names
that have no addresses usable by the requester should be suppressed,
and likewise, DNS PTR records that point to unusable SRV records
should be similarly be suppressed.
Cheshire Expires May 20, 2017 [Page 17]
Internet-Draft Hybrid uDNS/mDNS Service Discovery November 2016
5.5.3. NSEC and NSEC3 queries
Since a Hybrid Proxy only knows what names exist on the local link by
issuing queries for them, and since it would be impractical to issue
queries for every possible name just to find out which names exist
and which do not, a Hybrid Proxy cannot programatically generate the
traditional NSEC and NSEC3 records which assert the nonexistence of a
large range names.
When queried for an NSEC or NSEC3 record type, the Hybrid Proxy
issues a qtype "ANY" query using Multicast DNS on the local link, and
then generates an NSEC or NSEC3 response signifying which record
types do and do not exist just the specific name queried, and no
others.
Multicast DNS NSEC records received on the local link MUST NOT be
forwarded unmodified to a unicast querier, because there are slight
differences in the NSEC record data. In particular, Multicast DNS
NSEC records do not have the NSEC bit set in the Type Bit Map,
whereas conventional Unicast DNS NSEC records do have the NSEC bit
set.
5.5.4. Text Encoding Translation
A Hybrid Proxy does no translation between text encodings.
Specifically, a Hybrid Proxy does no translation between Punycode and
UTF-8, either in the owner name of DNS records, or anywhere in the
RDATA of DNS records (such as the RDATA of PTR records, SRV records,
NS records, or other record types like TXT, where it is ambiguous
whether the RDATA may contain DNS names). All bytes are treated
as-is, with no attempt at text encoding translation. A client
implementing DNS-based Service Discovery [RFC6763] will use UTF-8
encoding for its service discovery queries, which the Hybrid Proxy
passes through without any text encoding translation to the Multicast
DNS subsystem. Responses from the Multicast DNS subsystem are
similarly returned, without any text encoding translation, back to
the requesting client.
5.5.5. Application-Specific Data Translation
There may be cases where Application-Specific Data Translation is
appropriate.
For example, AirPrint printers tend to advertise fairly verbose
information about their capabilities in their DNS-SD TXT record. TXT
record sizes in the range 500-1000 bytes are not uncommon. This
information is a legacy from LPR printing, because LPR does not have
in-band capability negotiation, so all of this information is
Cheshire Expires May 20, 2017 [Page 18]
Internet-Draft Hybrid uDNS/mDNS Service Discovery November 2016
conveyed using the DNS-SD TXT record instead. IPP printing does have
in-band capability negotiation, but for convenience printers tend to
include the same capability information in their IPP DNS-SD TXT
records as well. For local mDNS use this extra TXT record
information is inefficient, but not fatal. However, when a Hybrid
Proxy aggregates data from multiple printers on a link, and sends it
via unicast (via UDP or TCP) this amount of unnecessary TXT record
information can result in large responses. A DNS reply over TCP
carrying information about 70 printers with an average of 700 bytes
per printer adds up to about 50 kilobytes of data. Therefore, a
Hybrid Proxy that is aware of the specifics of an application-layer
protocol such as AirPrint (which uses IPP) can elide unnecessary key/
value pairs from the DNS-SD TXT record for better network efficiency.
Also, the DNS-SD TXT record for many printers contains an "adminurl"
key something like "adminurl=http://printername.local/status.html".
For this URL to be useful outside the local link, the embedded
".local" hostname needs to be translated to an appropriate name with
larger scope. It is easy to translate ".local" names when they
appear in well-defined places, either as a record's name, or in the
rdata of record types like PTR and SRV. In the printing case, some
application-specific knowledge about the semantics of the "adminurl"
key is needed for the Hybrid Proxy to know that it contains a name
that needs to be translated. This is somewhat analogous to the need
for NAT gateways to contain ALGs (Application-Specific Gateways) to
facilitate the correct translation of protocols that embed addresses
in unexpected places.
As is the case with NAT ALGs, protocol designers are advised to avoid
communicating names and addresses in nonstandard locations, because
those "hidden" names and addresses are at risk of not being
translated when necessary, resulting in operational failures. In the
printing case, the operational failure of failing to translate the
"adminurl" key correctly is that, when accessed from a different
link, printing will still work, but clicking the "Admin" UI button
will fail to open the printer's administration page. Rather than
duplicating the host name from the service's SRV record in its
"adminurl" key, thereby having the same host name appear in two
places, a better design might have been to omit the host name from
the "adminurl" key, and instead have the client implicitly substitute
the target host name from the service's SRV record in place of a
missing host name in the "adminurl" key. That way the desired host
name only appears once, and it is in a well-defined place where
software like the Hybrid Proxy is expecting to find it.
Note that this kind of Application-Specific Data Translation is
expected to be very rare. It is the exception, rather than the rule.
This is an example of a common theme in computing. It is frequently
Cheshire Expires May 20, 2017 [Page 19]
Internet-Draft Hybrid uDNS/mDNS Service Discovery November 2016
the case that it is wise to start with a clean, layered design, with
clear boundaries. Then, in certain special cases, those layer
boundaries may be violated, where the performance and efficiency
benefits outweigh the inelegance of the layer violation.
These layer violations are optional. They are done primarily for
efficiency reasons, and generally should not be required for correct
operation. A Hybrid Proxy MAY operate solely at the mDNS layer,
without any knowledge of semantics at the DNS-SD layer or above.
5.6. Answer Aggregation
In a simple analysis, simply gathering multicast answers and
forwarding them in a unicast response seems adequate, but it raises
the question of how long the Hybrid Proxy should wait to be sure that
it has received all the Multicast DNS answers it needs to form a
complete Unicast DNS response. If it waits too little time, then it
risks its Unicast DNS response being incomplete. If it waits too
long, then it creates a poor user experience at the client end. In
fact, there may be no time which is both short enough to produce a
good user experience and at the same time long enough to reliably
produce complete results.
Similarly, the Hybrid Proxy -- the authoritative name server for the
subdomain in question -- needs to decide what DNS TTL to report for
these records. If the TTL is too long then the recursive (caching)
name servers issuing queries on behalf of their clients risk caching
stale data for too long. If the TTL is too short then the amount of
network traffic will be more than necessary. In fact, there may be
no TTL which is both short enough to avoid undesirable stale data and
at the same time long enough to be efficient on the network.
Both these dilemmas are solved by use of DNS Long-Lived Queries
(DNS LLQ) [I-D.sekar-dns-llq] or its newer replacement, DNS Push
Notifications [I-D.ietf-dnssd-push]. (Clients and Hybrid Proxies can
support both DNS LLQ and DNS Push, and when talking to a Hybrid Proxy
that supports both the client may use either protocol, as it chooses,
though it is expected that only DNS Push will continue to be
supported in the long run.) Clients supporting unicast DNS Service
Discovery SHOULD implement DNS Push Notifications
[I-D.ietf-dnssd-push] for improved user experience.
When a Hybrid Proxy receives a query containing a DNS LLQ or DNS Push
Notification option, it responds immediately using the Multicast DNS
records it already has in its cache (if any). This provides a good
client user experience by providing a near-instantaneous response.
Simultaneously, the Hybrid Proxy issues a Multicast DNS query on the
local link to discover if there are any additional Multicast DNS
Cheshire Expires May 20, 2017 [Page 20]
Internet-Draft Hybrid uDNS/mDNS Service Discovery November 2016
records it did not already know about. Should additional Multicast
DNS responses be received, these are then delivered to the client
using DNS LLQ or DNS Push Notification update messages. The
timeliness of such update messages is limited only by the timeliness
of the device responding to the Multicast DNS query. If the
Multicast DNS device responds quickly, then the update message is
delivered quickly. If the Multicast DNS device responds slowly, then
the update message is delivered slowly. The benefit of using update
messages is that the Hybrid Proxy can respond promptly because it
doesn't have to delay its unicast response to allow for the expected
worst-case delay for receiving all the Multicast DNS responses. Even
if a proxy were to try to provide reliability by assuming an
excessively pessimistic worst-case time (thereby giving a very poor
user experience) there would still be the risk of a slow Multicast
DNS device taking even longer than that (e.g., a device that is not
even powered on until ten seconds after the initial query is
received) resulting in incomplete responses. Using update message
solves this dilemma: even very late responses are not lost; they are
delivered in subsequent update messages.
There are two factors that determine specifically how responses are
generated:
The first factor is whether the query from the client included an LLQ
or DNS Push Notification option (typical with long-lived service
browsing PTR queries) or not (typical with one-shot operations like
SRV or address record queries). Note that queries containing the LLQ
or PUSH option are received directly from the client. Queries
containing no LLQ or PUSH option are generally received via the
client's configured recursive (caching) name server.
The second factor is whether the Hybrid Proxy already has at least
one record in its cache that positively answers the question.
o No LLQ or PUSH option; no answer in cache:
Issue an mDNS query, exactly as a local client would issue an mDNS
query on the local link for the desired record name, type and
class, including retransmissions, as appropriate, according to the
established mDNS retransmission schedule [RFC6762]. As soon as
any Multicast DNS response packet is received that contains one or
more positive answers to that question (with or without the Cache
Flush bit [RFC6762] set), or a negative answer (signified via a
Multicast DNS NSEC record [RFC6762]), the Hybrid Proxy generates a
Unicast DNS response packet containing the corresponding (filtered
and translated) answers and sends it to the remote client. If
after six seconds no Multicast DNS answers have been received,
return a negative response to the remote client. Six seconds is
enough time to transmit three mDNS queries, and allow some time
Cheshire Expires May 20, 2017 [Page 21]
Internet-Draft Hybrid uDNS/mDNS Service Discovery November 2016
for responses to arrive.
DNS TTLs in responses are capped to at most ten seconds.
o No LLQ or PUSH option; at least one answer in cache:
Send response right away to minimise delay.
DNS TTLs in responses are capped to at most ten seconds.
No local mDNS queries are performed.
(Reasoning: Given RRSet TTL harmonisation, if the proxy has one
Multicast DNS answer in its cache, it can reasonably assume that
it has all of them.)
o Query contains LLQ or PUSH option; no answer in cache:
As in the case above with no answer in the cache, perform mDNS
querying for six seconds, and send a response to the remote client
as soon as any relevant mDNS response is received.
If after six seconds no relevant mDNS response has been received,
return negative response to the remote client (for LLQ; not
applicable for PUSH). (Reasoning: We don't need to rush to send
an empty answer.)
Whether or not a relevant mDNS response is received within six
seconds, the query remains active for as long as the client
maintains the LLQ or PUSH state, and if mDNS answers are received
later, LLQ or PUSH update messages are sent.
DNS TTLs in responses are returned unmodified.
o Query contains LLQ or PUSH option; at least one answer in cache:
As in the case above with at least one answer in cache, send
response right away to minimise delay.
The query remains active for as long as the client maintains the
LLQ or PUSH state, and if additional mDNS answers are received
later, LLQ or PUSH update messages are sent.
(Reasoning: We want UI that is displayed very rapidly, yet
continues to remain accurate even as the network environment
changes.)
DNS TTLs in responses are returned unmodified.
Note that the "negative responses" referred to above are "no error no
answer" negative responses, not NXDOMAIN. This is because the Hybrid
Proxy cannot know all the Multicast DNS domain names that may exist
on a link at any given time, so any name with no answers may have
child names that do exist, making it an "empty nonterminal" name.
Cheshire Expires May 20, 2017 [Page 22]
Internet-Draft Hybrid uDNS/mDNS Service Discovery November 2016
6. Administrative DNS Records
6.1. DNS SOA (Start of Authority) Record
The MNAME field SHOULD contain the host name of the Hybrid Proxy
device (i.e., the same domain name as the rdata of the NS record
delegating the relevant zone(s) to this Hybrid Proxy device).
The RNAME field SHOULD contain the mailbox of the person responsible
for administering this Hybrid Proxy device.
The SERIAL field MUST be zero.
Zone transfers are undefined for Hybrid Proxy zones, and consequently
the REFRESH, RETRY and EXPIRE fields have no useful meaning for
Hybrid Proxy zones. These fields SHOULD contain reasonable default
values. The RECOMMENDED values are: REFRESH 7200, RETRY 3600, EXPIRE
86400.
The MINIMUM field (used to control the lifetime of negative cache
entries) SHOULD contain the value 10. The value of ten seconds is
chosen based on user experience considerations (see Section 5.5.1).
In the event that there are multiple Hybrid Proxy devices on a link
for fault tolerance reasons, this will result in clients receiving
inconsistent SOA records (different MNAME, and possibly RNAME)
depending on which Hybrid Proxy answers their SOA query. However,
since clients generally have no reason to use the MNAME or RNAME
data, this is unlikely to cause any problems.
6.2. DNS NS Records
In the event that there are multiple Hybrid Proxy devices on a link
for fault tolerance reasons, the parent zone MUST be configured with
glue records giving the names and addresses of all the Hybrid Proxy
devices on the link.
Each Hybrid Proxy device MUST be configured with its own NS record,
and with the NS records of its fellow Hybrid Proxy devices on the
same link, so that it can return the correct answers for NS queries.
6.3. DNS SRV Records
In the event that a Hybrid Proxy implements LLQ [I-D.sekar-dns-llq]
and/or DNS Push Notifications [I-D.ietf-dnssd-push] (as most SHOULD)
they MUST generate answers for the appropriate corresponding _dns-
llq._udp.<zone> and/or _dns-push-tls._tcp.<zone> SRV record queries.
These records are conceptually inserted into the namespace of the
Cheshire Expires May 20, 2017 [Page 23]
Internet-Draft Hybrid uDNS/mDNS Service Discovery November 2016
corresponding zones. They do not exist in the ".local" namespace of
the local link.
7. DNSSEC Issues
7.1. On-line signing only
Auth server must possess key, to generate signed data from mDNS
responses. Therefore off-line signing not applicable to Hybrid
Proxy.
7.2. NSEC and NSEC3 Records
In DNSSEC, NSEC and NSEC3 records are used to assert the nonexistence
of certain names, also described as "authenticated denial of
existence".
Since a Hybrid Proxy only knows what names exist on the local link by
issuing queries for them, and since it would be impractical to issue
queries for every possible name just to find out which names exist
and which do not, a Hybrid Proxy cannot programatically synthesize
the traditional NSEC and NSEC3 records which assert the nonexistence
of a large range names. Instead, when generating a negative
response, a Hybrid Proxy programatically synthesizes a single NSEC
record assert the nonexistence of just the specific name queried, and
no others. Since the Hybrid Proxy has the zone signing key, it can
do this on demand. Since the NSEC record asserts the nonexistence of
only a single name, zone walking is not a concern, so NSEC3 is not
necessary.
Note that this applies only to traditional immediate DNS queries,
which may return immediate negative answers when no immediate
positive answer is available. When used with a DNS Push Notification
subscription [I-D.ietf-dnssd-push] there are no negative answers,
merely the absence of answers so far, which may change in the future
if answers become available.
Cheshire Expires May 20, 2017 [Page 24]
Internet-Draft Hybrid uDNS/mDNS Service Discovery November 2016
8. IPv6 Considerations
An IPv6-only host and an IPv4-only host behave as "ships that pass in
the night". Even if they are on the same Ethernet [802.3], neither
is aware of the other's traffic. For this reason, each link may have
*two* unrelated ".local." zones, one for IPv6 and one for IPv4.
Since for practical purposes, a group of IPv6-only hosts and a group
of IPv4-only hosts on the same Ethernet act as if they were on two
entirely separate Ethernet segments, it is unsurprising that their
use of the ".local." zone should occur exactly as it would if they
really were on two entirely separate Ethernet segments.
It will be desirable to have a mechanism to 'stitch' together these
two unrelated ".local." zones so that they appear as one. Such
mechanism will need to be able to differentiate between a dual-stack
(v4/v6) host participating in both ".local." zones, and two different
hosts, one IPv6-only and the other IPv4-only, which are both trying
to use the same name(s). Such a mechanism will be specified in a
future companion document.
At present, it is RECOMMENDED that a Hybrid Proxy be configured with
a single domain name for both the IPv4 and IPv6 ".local." zones on
the local link, and when a unicast query is received, it should issue
Multicast DNS queries using both IPv4 and IPv6 on the local link, and
then combine the results.
9. Security Considerations
9.1. Authenticity
A service proves its presence on a link by its ability to answer
link-local multicast queries on that link. If greater security is
desired, then the Hybrid Proxy mechanism should not be used, and
something with stronger security should be used instead, such as
authenticated secure DNS Update [RFC2136] [RFC3007].
9.2. Privacy
The Domain Name System is, generally speaking, a global public
database. Records that exist in the Domain Name System name
hierarchy can be queried by name from, in principle, anywhere in the
world. If services on a mobile device (like a laptop computer) are
made visible via the Hybrid Proxy mechanism, then when those services
become visible in a domain such as "My House.example.com" that might
indicate to (potentially hostile) observers that the mobile device is
in my house. When those services disappear from
"My House.example.com" that change could be used by observers to
Cheshire Expires May 20, 2017 [Page 25]
Internet-Draft Hybrid uDNS/mDNS Service Discovery November 2016
infer when the mobile device (and possibly its owner) may have left
the house. The privacy of this information may be protected using
techniques like firewalls and split-view DNS, as are customarily used
today to protect the privacy of corporate DNS information.
The Hybrid Proxy could also provide sensitive records only to
authenticated users. This is a general DNS problem, not specific to
the Hybrid Proxy. Work is underway in the IETF to tackle this
problem [RFC7626].
9.3. Denial of Service
A remote attacker could use a rapid series of unique Unicast DNS
queries to induce a Hybrid Proxy to generate a rapid series of
corresponding Multicast DNS queries on one or more of its local
links. Multicast traffic is generally more expensive than unicast
traffic -- especially on Wi-Fi links -- which makes this attack
particularly serious. To limit the damage that can be caused by such
attacks, a Hybrid Proxy (or the underlying Multicast DNS subsystem
which it utilizes) MUST implement Multicast DNS query rate limiting
appropriate to the link technology in question. For today's 802.11b/
g/n/ac Wi-Fi links (for which approximately 200 multicast packets per
second is sufficient to consume approximately 100% of the wireless
spectrum) a limit of 20 Multicast DNS query packets per second is
RECOMMENDED. On other link technologies like Gigabit Ethernet higher
limits may be appropriate. A consequence of this rate limiting is
that a rogue remote client could issue an excessive number of
queries, resuling in denial of service to other remote clients
attempting to use that Hybrid Proxy. However, this is preferable to
a rogue remote client being able to inflict even greater harm on the
local network, which could impact the correct operation of all local
clients on that network.
10. Intelectual Property Rights
Apple has submitted an IPR disclosure concerning the technique
proposed in this document. Details are available on the IETF IPR
disclosure page [IPR2119].
11. IANA Considerations
This document has no IANA Considerations.
Cheshire Expires May 20, 2017 [Page 26]
Internet-Draft Hybrid uDNS/mDNS Service Discovery November 2016
12. Acknowledgments
Thanks to Markus Stenberg for helping develop the policy regarding
the four styles of unicast response according to what data is
immediately available in the cache. Thanks to Anders Brandt, Tim
Chown, Ralph Droms, Ray Hunter, Ted Lemon, Tom Pusateri, Markus
Stenberg, Dave Thaler, and Andrew Yourtchenko for their comments.
13. References
13.1. Normative References
[RFC1034] Mockapetris, P., "Domain names - concepts and facilities",
STD 13, RFC 1034, DOI 10.17487/RFC1034, November 1987,
<http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc1034>.
[RFC1035] Mockapetris, P., "Domain names - implementation and
specification", STD 13, RFC 1035, DOI 10.17487/RFC1035,
November 1987, <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc1035>.
[RFC1918] Rekhter, Y., Moskowitz, B., Karrenberg, D., de Groot, G.,
and E. Lear, "Address Allocation for Private Internets",
BCP 5, RFC 1918, DOI 10.17487/RFC1918, February 1996,
<http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc1918>.
[RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, DOI 10.17487/
RFC2119, March 1997,
<http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2119>.
[RFC2308] Andrews, M., "Negative Caching of DNS Queries (DNS
NCACHE)", RFC 2308, DOI 10.17487/RFC2308, March 1998,
<http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2308>.
[RFC3629] Yergeau, F., "UTF-8, a transformation format of ISO
10646", STD 63, RFC 3629, DOI 10.17487/RFC3629,
November 2003, <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3629>.
[RFC3927] Cheshire, S., Aboba, B., and E. Guttman, "Dynamic
Configuration of IPv4 Link-Local Addresses", RFC 3927,
DOI 10.17487/RFC3927, May 2005,
<http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3927>.
[RFC4862] Thomson, S., Narten, T., and T. Jinmei, "IPv6 Stateless
Address Autoconfiguration", RFC 4862, DOI 10.17487/
RFC4862, September 2007,
<http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4862>.
Cheshire Expires May 20, 2017 [Page 27]
Internet-Draft Hybrid uDNS/mDNS Service Discovery November 2016
[RFC5198] Klensin, J. and M. Padlipsky, "Unicode Format for Network
Interchange", RFC 5198, DOI 10.17487/RFC5198, March 2008,
<http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5198>.
[RFC6762] Cheshire, S. and M. Krochmal, "Multicast DNS", RFC 6762,
December 2012.
[RFC6763] Cheshire, S. and M. Krochmal, "DNS-Based Service
Discovery", RFC 6763, December 2012.
[I-D.ietf-dnssd-push]
Pusateri, T. and S. Cheshire, "DNS Push Notifications",
draft-ietf-dnssd-push-09 (work in progress), October 2016.
13.2. Informative References
[HOME] Cheshire, S., "Special Use Top Level Domain 'home'",
draft-cheshire-homenet-dot-home (work in progress),
November 2015.
[IPR2119] "Apple Inc.'s Statement about IPR related to Hybrid
Unicast/Multicast DNS-Based Service Discovery",
<https://datatracker.ietf.org/ipr/2119/>.
[ohp] "Hybrid Proxy implementation for OpenWrt",
<https://github.com/sbyx/ohybridproxy/>.
[I-D.sekar-dns-llq]
Sekar, K., "DNS Long-Lived Queries",
draft-sekar-dns-llq-01 (work in progress), August 2006.
[RFC2132] Alexander, S. and R. Droms, "DHCP Options and BOOTP Vendor
Extensions", RFC 2132, DOI 10.17487/RFC2132, March 1997,
<http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2132>.
[RFC2136] Vixie, P., Ed., Thomson, S., Rekhter, Y., and J. Bound,
"Dynamic Updates in the Domain Name System (DNS UPDATE)",
RFC 2136, DOI 10.17487/RFC2136, April 1997,
<http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2136>.
[RFC3007] Wellington, B., "Secure Domain Name System (DNS) Dynamic
Update", RFC 3007, DOI 10.17487/RFC3007, November 2000,
<http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3007>.
[RFC4193] Hinden, R. and B. Haberman, "Unique Local IPv6 Unicast
Addresses", RFC 4193, DOI 10.17487/RFC4193, October 2005,
<http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4193>.
Cheshire Expires May 20, 2017 [Page 28]
Internet-Draft Hybrid uDNS/mDNS Service Discovery November 2016
[RFC7558] Lynn, K., Cheshire, S., Blanchet, M., and D. Migault,
"Requirements for Scalable DNS-Based Service Discovery
(DNS-SD) / Multicast DNS (mDNS) Extensions", RFC 7558,
DOI 10.17487/RFC7558, July 2015,
<http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7558>.
[RFC7626] Bortzmeyer, S., "DNS Privacy Considerations", RFC 7626,
DOI 10.17487/RFC7626, August 2015,
<http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7626>.
[RFC7788] Stenberg, M., Barth, S., and P. Pfister, "Home Networking
Control Protocol", RFC 7788, DOI 10.17487/RFC7788,
April 2016, <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7788>.
[RFC6760] Cheshire, S. and M. Krochmal, "Requirements for a Protocol
to Replace the AppleTalk Name Binding Protocol (NBP)",
RFC 6760, December 2012.
[ZC] Cheshire, S. and D. Steinberg, "Zero Configuration
Networking: The Definitive Guide", O'Reilly Media, Inc. ,
ISBN 0-596-10100-7, December 2005.
[802.1Q] "IEEE Standard for Local and metropolitan area networks --
Bridges and Bridged Networks", IEEE Std 802.1Q-2014,
November 2014, <http://standards.ieee.org/getieee802/
download/802-1Q-2014.pdf>.
[802.3] "Information technology - Telecommunications and
information exchange between systems - Local and
metropolitan area networks - Specific requirements - Part
3: Carrier Sense Multiple Access with Collision Detection
(CMSA/CD) Access Method and Physical Layer
Specifications", IEEE Std 802.3-2008, December 2008,
<http://standards.ieee.org/getieee802/802.3.html>.
[802.5] "ISO/IEC 8802-5 Information technology -
Telecommunications and information exchange between
systems - Local and metropolitan area networks - Common
specifications - Part 5: Token ring access method and
physical layer specifications, (also ANSI/IEEE Std 802.5-
1998), 1998.", IEEE Std 802.5-1998, October 1998,
<http://www.iso.org/iso/catalogue_detail?csnumber=29923/>.
[802.11] "Information technology - Telecommunications and
information exchange between systems - Local and
metropolitan area networks - Specific requirements - Part
11: Wireless LAN Medium Access Control (MAC) and Physical
Layer (PHY) Specifications", IEEE Std 802.11-2007,
Cheshire Expires May 20, 2017 [Page 29]
Internet-Draft Hybrid uDNS/mDNS Service Discovery November 2016
June 2007,
<http://standards.ieee.org/getieee802/802.11.html>.
Appendix A. Implementation Status
Some aspects of the mechanism specified in this document already
exist in deployed software. Some aspects are new. This section
outlines which aspects already exist and which are new.
A.1. Already Implemented and Deployed
Domain enumeration by the client (the "b._dns-sd._udp" queries) is
already implemented and deployed.
Unicast queries to the indicated discovery domain is already
implemented and deployed.
These are implemented and deployed in Mac OS X 10.4 and later
(including all versions of Apple iOS, on all iPhone and iPads), in
Bonjour for Windows, and in Android 4.1 "Jelly Bean" (API Level 16)
and later.
Domain enumeration and unicast querying have been used for several
years at IETF meetings to make Terminal Room printers discoverable
from outside the Terminal room. When an IETF attendee presses Cmd-P
on a Mac, or selects AirPrint on an iPad or iPhone, and the Terminal
room printers appear, that is because the client is sending unicast
DNS queries to the IETF DNS servers.
A.2. Already Implemented
A minimal portable Hybrid Proxy implementation has been produced by
Markus Stenberg and Steven Barth, which runs on OS X and several
Linux variants including OpenWrt [ohp]. It was demonstrated at the
Berlin IETF in July 2013.
Tom Pusateri also has an implementation that runs on any Unix/Linux.
It has a RESTful interface for management and an experimental demo
CLI and web interface.
A.3. Partially Implemented
The current APIs make multiple domains visible to client software,
but most client UI today lumps all discovered services into a single
flat list. This is largely a chicken-and-egg problem. Application
writers were naturally reluctant to spend time writing domain-aware
UI code when few customers today would benefit from it. If Hybrid
Cheshire Expires May 20, 2017 [Page 30]
Internet-Draft Hybrid uDNS/mDNS Service Discovery November 2016
Proxy deployment becomes common, then application writers will have a
reason to provide better UI. Existing applications will work with
the Hybrid Proxy, but will show all services in a single flat list.
Applications with improved UI will group services by domain.
The Long-Lived Query mechanism [I-D.sekar-dns-llq] referred to in
this specification exists and is deployed, but has not been
standardized by the IETF. The IETF is considering standardizing a
superior Long-Lived Query mechanism called DNS Push Notifications
[I-D.ietf-dnssd-push]. The pragmatic short-term deployment approach
is for vendors to produce Hybrid Proxies that implement both the
deployed Long-Lived Query mechanism [I-D.sekar-dns-llq] (for today's
clients) and the new DNS Push Notifications mechanism
[I-D.ietf-dnssd-push] as the preferred long-term direction.
The translating/filtering Hybrid Proxy specified in this document.
Implementations are under development, and operational experience
with these implementations has guided updates to this document.
A.4. Not Yet Implemented
Client implementations of the new DNS Push Notifications mechanism
[I-D.ietf-dnssd-push] are currently underway.
A mechanism to 'stitch' together multiple ".local." zones so that
they appear as one. Such a stitching mechanism will be specified in
a future companion document. This stitching mechanism addresses the
issue that if a printer is physically moved from one link to another,
then conceptually the old service has disappeared from the DNS
namespace, and a new service with a similar name has appeared. This
stitching mechanism will allow a service to change its point of
attachment without changing the name by which it can be found.
Author's Address
Stuart Cheshire
Apple Inc.
1 Infinite Loop
Cupertino, California 95014
USA
Phone: +1 408 974 3207
Email: cheshire@apple.com
Cheshire Expires May 20, 2017 [Page 31]
