"Justin R. Erenkrantz" wrote:
> Then, how do we handle submissions with the DNS model? Is there a way to
> dynamically have BIND et al. update the DNS tables on-the-fly?? Or, is this
> where our server comes in - in that it handles collisions and submissions?
> Then, wouldn't everyone have to point at our DNS servers to get results NOT
> their local DNS server? <slap> The DNS query will be resolved by our
> servers. Duh... But, read on...
To update BIND, you just send it a SIGHUP, and it re-loads the zone files - at
least it did last time I checked. You can HUP it with a cronjob, or when ever an
entry is added.
The beauty of the DNS solution is that the users DON'T have to point directly at
cdin.org or what ever. The server name is in the query. They pass that to their
DNS, which forwards the query and caches the result - handy, no?
> Cool idea. But, how are the results returned to the client or even
> generated by the server? A TXT record has been mentioned - how does that
> help? Is that where XML comes in? But, if the data were stored in the TXT
> record - the result is not really by dynamic. Or, does the client have to
> "avoid" the normal DNS lookup of their OS by writing our own pseudo-DNS
> system to do this? Doesn't a 'normal' DNS lookup just return an IP address?
> Or, am I wrong, and that the OSes func. calls allow us to view the DNS
> record itself (and hence the TXT record or any other record)?
A DNS lookup returns a record. There are alot of these, but most people are just
familiar with what you get back from gethostbyname() - A records. There are
lower level calls (which escape me right now) that can get other record types -
SOA, NS, MX, TXT, etc.. The actually format of the TXT record is still
undecided. XML is one of the suggestions proposed, but I don't think a DTD has
been proposed yet.
> Ooooh, I need to brush up on DNS 101 - hell, the DNS RFC was written by a
> guy right here at my university! I should know better...
It has been a while, but I remember the DNS/BIND O'reilly book being REALLY
good, even having a chapter on doing lower level queries.
J.C.