Thanks Patrick for the full history on templates and groups In mean time I looked to the .cz extension and it seems they serve the same purpose.
I think the 2 flavours for nameservers should not be an obstacle. When using a template, it would be possible to use either host links vs host attributes. It depends on how you design it. I see a big difference with bulk updates. Bulk updates equals to lots of data to be transferred. With templates, you further "normalize" the data model. It is comparable with contact updates: when you change the name of a contact, all WHOIS data of domains having the same contact id are updated with a single update command. When you change a template by updating nameservers/DNSSEC data/..., all DNS data of domains having the same template id are updated with a single command. The client is relieved of the burden to check whether all domains with the same DNS "profile" are updated and it does not have to perform a bulk update of thousands of domains. I'm also not in favour of a protocol extension for bulk updates. The reason is that it is already possible. A client may handle updates asynchronously and can shoot a list of command to the EPP server. Kind regards Pieter > On 26 May 2018, at 04:48, Patrick Mevzek <p...@dotandco.com> wrote: > > Pieter, > > On Fri, May 25, 2018, at 21:37, Pieter Vandepitte wrote: >> The registry I work for, developed a custom extension to manage >> "nameserver" groups and "keygroups". When a registrar links a group to a >> domain, all member nameservers/keys of that group are automatically >> linked to that domain. This way, it is very convenient for DNS operators >> to update DNS data on their complete domain portfolio with a single >> group update, without forgetting a domain. >> >> It is used quite a lot, but I did not find other registries having this >> kind of functionality (I did not perform an extensive search). I'm quite >> sure we are not the only ones, so do you know other registries having >> this? > > I know two extensions: > > - the .BE/.EU one: the last time I have looked at them, it was the same, > except for the namespace > - the .CZ one, in fact in their Fred open source EPP server (so probably used > for their others TLDs), see > https://fred.nic.cz/documentation/html/EPPReference/ManagedObjects/Nssets.html > and > https://fred.nic.cz/documentation/html/EPPReference/ManagedObjects/Keysets.html > > >> From memory, they cater for the same needs, but are basically incompatible, >> besides the namespace. > Starting with the terminology: "group" on one side, "set" on the other. > > I would add 2 remarks: > - for nameservers it seems to me to make more sense when hosts are objects, > instead of attributes while obviously it works in both case. The world is > quite divided on this, gTLDs are mostly (only?) in the objects group, while > ccTLDs are predominantly in the attributes group > - for DNSSEC material, here we hit another problem, the DS vs DNSKEY > dichotomy, partially reflected in the dsData vs keyData interfaces of > secDNS-1.1 > All grouping cases only make sense of course with the DNSKEY case, because > the DS depends on the domain. Again, without any hard facts, I still believe > that most registries are using the DS case. Some, even with the dsData > interface, ask also for the underlying keyData, but only to check that the DS > was correctly computed. > > Also, such kind of features have consequences for transfers. > >> Is there any interest from the community to offer such a feature to >> their registrars and collaborate on a common extension? I think of >> something more generic in a way that a registrar can create a "template" >> for any kind of object and apply that template to other objects. This >> way, besides the benefits for DNS operators, a registrar could also >> define e.g. a default admin contact for every domain, or even apply >> custom extensions to every domain… > > Note that there were various attempts to define features such as templates, > containers, or bulk operations. > > Specifically for bulk operations, since the discussions often circled around > that the primary argument was that EPP is a provisioning protocol and as such > is not tailored for bulk operations. Which brings immediately this counter > argument: ... but you can query for more than one object in a given <check> > command. > > Note that while not completely the same, issues of "bundling" domain names > due to IDN variants typically is also loosely related to all of this. > > One of the latest iteration around these concepts was this draft: > https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-gould-regext-dataset-01 > > HTH, > > -- > Patrick Mevzek > > _______________________________________________ > regext mailing list > regext@ietf.org > https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/regext _______________________________________________ regext mailing list regext@ietf.org https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/regext
