<hat wg-co-chair=off just-another-bozo=on> At Sat, 17 Apr 2004 10:29:22 +0300 (EEST), Pekka Savola wrote: > On Fri, 16 Apr 2004, Ralph Droms wrote: > > Also - I finally got around to reviewing why the DHCP option is > > called "DNS Recursive Name Server". Turns out RFC 1035 refers to > > "recursive server" (top of page 7) and "recursive service" (several > > places), so we used the name "DNS Recursive Name Server" for the option. > > It might be appropriate to retitle this section to be "Obtaining a > > List of DNS Recursive Servers". > > I changed this as well, even though I think "resolvers" is a better > word for this, and already being used in other documents. If others > have arguments about this, please speak up ASAP.
Sorry not to have caught this question sooner. Short answer: Ralph was right, the correct term is "recursive name server". That's the closest thing we have to standard term for a name server supporting recursive service (ie, an entity which accepts DNS messages with QR=0, RD=1 and replies with messages with QR=1, RA=1). "Resolver" just means an entity which sends messages with QR=0 and receives messages with QR=1. "Resolver" without further qualification does not specify the query mode in which the resolver operates (recursive or iterative). Name server just means an entity which receives messages with QR=0 and replies with messages with QR=1. An entity which both sends and receives both queries and responses is both a name server and a resolver (hence much of the confusion), but, at the conceptual level, it's a name server glued back to back with a resolver, with communciation between the two to handle recursive mode queries. "Recursive server", or, more properly, "recursive name server", means a name server which offers recursive service, ie, a name server which a recursive-mode resolver might expect to do something useful if sent a query with RD=1. Please also see the discussion in draft-ietf-dnsext-dnssec-intro, which not only goes into a bit more detail but also tries to expand this terminology to cope with the joys of DNSSEC. </hat> . dnsop resources:_____________________________________________________ web user interface: http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~llynch/dnsop.html mhonarc archive: http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~llynch/dnsop/index.html
