# Advertising info services via URLs in the DNS (was - Re: Seperating URC format and URN->URC resoluti

Martin Hamilton ()
Thu, 28 Apr 1994 12:03:19 +0100 (BST)

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    Message-Id: <0hjtTr2STRk347jV4l@mrrl.lut.ac.uk>

    Date: Thu, 28 Apr 1994 12:03:19 +0100 (BST)

    From: Martin Hamilton <martin@mrrl.lut.ac.uk>

    To: uri@bunyip.com

    Subject: Advertising info services via URLs in the DNS (was - Re: Seperating URC format and URN->URC resolution)

    In-Reply-To: <9404280245.AA24153@brainy.smarts.com>

Excerpts from mail: 27-Apr-94 Re: Seperating URC format a.. Alexander
Dupuy@smarts.c (3259)

> Using TXT records to hold URLs in this way is not trying to resolve the
> original URN; it is just using DNS to hold a pointer to something more than
> just the IP address of the URN-URC server, namely a description of the
> protocol to use to talk to each URN->URC server and the port to contact.

As an aside to this discussion, I have a suggestion about the use of
URLs in the DNS which it would be interesting to get some feedback on -
see below.

Since my original posting, a fair few people have drawn my attention to
RFC 1464, which suggests tagging arbitrary info in TXT records like this

IN TXT "url=http://info.cern.ch/"

My vote would be for making this tag optional

> From: Martin Hamilton <martin@mrrl.lut.ac.uk>
> Date: Tue, 19 Apr 94 02:43:05 PDT
> Subject: Advertising info services via the DNS
>
> Hi,
>
> You may be familiar with the technique used by Netfind to locate white
> pages services - by looking up TXT records in the DNS. If not, see
> ftp://ftp.cs.colorado.edu/cs/distribs/netfind/Netfind.WP.URLs
>
> I think this technique might be useful as a generic method for
> advertising services, i.e. by putting the "official" URL for a service
> into (say) the DNS entry for the server which provides it. This info
> may then easily be harvested by resource discovery systems.
>
> Registering your service only requires the addition of a single line to
> your DNS configuration, e.g.
>
> www IN CNAME lust.mrrl.lut.ac.uk.
> lust IN A 158.125.220.7
> IN TXT http://www.mrrl.lut.ac.uk/
>
> and...
>
> # nslookup
> Default Server: avarice.mrrl.lut.ac.uk
> Address: 158.125.220.8
>
> > set type=txt
> > www.mrrl.lut.ac.uk
> Server: avarice.mrrl.lut.ac.uk
> Address: 158.125.220.8
>
> www.mrrl.lut.ac.uk canonical name = lust.mrrl.lut.ac.uk
> lust.mrrl.lut.ac.uk text = "http://www.mrrl.lut.ac.uk/"
>
> There is scope for putting some more info in here, e.g. brief
> description of server, admin contact, whether robots are
> allowed/encouraged, ... I think this is the province of the info
> server, rather than the DNS
>
> OK, what do you think of it so far?
>
> Martin

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