RFC 1031
MILNET name domain transition
Part 1 of 2 🎀
MILNET NAME DOMAIN TRANSITION 💖
okay bestie, this is RFC 1031, called MILNET NAME DOMAIN TRANSITION, from the Networking Working Group. W. Lazear at MITRE wrote it, and it's dated November 1987. The title block doesn't list a category, and it doesn't say it obsoletes or updates any other RFC, so there's no drama there 💅
STATUS OF THIS MEMO ✨
so this section is the big pitch 🫶 it pulls together what you need to bring domain style names into the whole DDN/MILNET Internet community. no official policy has been published yet, but ngl, adding domain style names is going to affect every host on the DDN/MILNET Internet, so everyone should be paying attention 👀
this RFC is basically a helper for implementors and administrators. it gives you three things: 1) an overview of the move from host tables to domains, 2) a possible timetable for that move, and 3) references to documentation and software about the DDN/ARPANET domain system. distribution is unlimited, so share away 🦋
BACKGROUND 🌸
every MILNET host is expected to be able to translate the name of any other host into its Internet address. right now, the way that works is by looking the name up in a table of all the hosts, and honestly? it's giving cumbersome 😭 it all depends on one central point of information. the Network Information Center (NIC) keeps a table of the hosts registered in the MILNET Internet and their addresses, and the size of that table and how often it changes have hit the limits of manageability 💀
so here's how it goes now: a host grabs the central host table from the NIC by FTP on a regular schedule, processes it locally (to pare it down or reformat it), and then uses it for name resolution.
the domain system does the same job, but with a distributed database and software instead. in this setup, host resolvers ask domain servers for name resolution, and they're allowed to cache answers to speed things up ⚡ each domain server holds a piece of the hierarchical database, and each piece has its own separate administrative authority and control. redundancy comes from transferring data between servers that cooperate with each other 🫶
the domain system has been running successfully on the ARPANET for over a year, and that's the proof 🏆 the NIC's central host table isn't a complete list anymore, which means the ARPANET doesn't depend mainly on the host table. the domain system is now being put onto the MILNET using DoD military standard protocols.
the first step has already happened, as required by DDN Management Bulletin #32 (22 Jan 1987). every host name got converted from a simple, flat namespace into a structured name that fits domains 🎀 in the second step, servers acting as the root of the database hierarchy were set up. the next step is for hosts to move away from using the host table 🧚
MIGRATION PATH 🦋
not every host is going to switch from host table to domain server at the same time. so there are three stages of conversion. they roughly line up with 1) using the host table for every application, 2) using the domain system for only some applications, and 3) using the domain system for every application. these stages will all exist at once, because hosts convert their application software based on the resources they have available. the subsections below go through each stage in more detail 💅
Host Table Only 🗂️
in the first stage, a host depends entirely on the host table for name resolution. the table comes from the NIC's central copy, and resolution happens by scanning the local table. most hosts are in this stage right now 🫠
some hosts might find it infeasible to ever convert to the domain system, because of older architectures, software that can't be changed, or other considerations. at the end of the conversion period, the NIC will stop maintaining an internet host table. so to keep going, the hosts that don't convert will need an equivalent of the host table from some other source. that source could be another host with a bilateral agreement negotiated offline, a community-of-interest host acting as the central repository for that community, or a locally-maintained table of host names and addresses. how the table gets transferred from the source is up to local implementation and bilateral agreements 📦
Domain System and Host Table 🌈
in the second stage, a host uses both the host table and the domain system. the likely scenario is that applications like TELNET and FTP use the domain system, while MAIL keeps using the host table for name resolution. there's also an alternate scenario where batch-style applications like MAIL move to the domain system first, and the interactive applications convert later 🤔
this stage is seen as transitory, since hosts are converting over to the domain system exclusively. it's called out as its own stage to really emphasize that, during the transition, you need both the host table and the domain system 📣
Domain System Only 💜
in the third and final stage, a host has finished converting and uses the domain system exclusively. this includes correct processing of the mailbox and mail exchanger resource records 🎉
MIGRATION TIMETABLE ⏰
okay, here's the timeline 🗓️ Table 1 shows the events and dates for the MILNET move from the host table to the domain system. the operational testing of the root server software is done ✅ voluntary conversion can start right away, and mandatory conversion is required by October 1989. after that date, any hosts that haven't converted need to get the host table equivalent through private arrangement (see "Migration Path" above) 😬
Start End
Milestone Date Date
=========================================== ====== ======
Root server operational testing Dec 86 Jul 87
Policy announced in DDN Management Bulletin Oct 87
Host conversion Oct 87 Oct 89
Host table discontinued Oct 89
MILNET Name Domain Timetable
Table 1to be continued in part 2 🧚💖 DOCUMENTATION and IMPLEMENTATIONS are coming next!
4BSD Unix Resolver and Server (BIND) 🌸
okay so most of the hosts running the lower level domain servers on the ARPANET are 4BSD systems, and they run the code called BIND 🦋 Mike Karels (UCB) keeps it going with periodic releases, and you can reach him here:
ARPANET: karels@okeeffe.berkeley.edu
US MAIL: Computer Systems Research Group
Computer Science Division
Department of EE & CS
University of California
Berkeley, CA 94720There are two distribution mailing lists that share info about BIND 💌 For general chat, contact bindrequest@ucbarpa.berkeley.edu and ask to join the BIND list. If you want news on testing the developmental versions, contact bind-test-request@ucbarpa.berkeley.edu and ask to join the BIND-TEST list.
A commercial version of BIND ships with Sun Microsystems' operating system version 3.2 ✨ The point of contact there is Bill Nowicki:
ARPANET: nowicki@sun.com
US MAIL: Sun Microsystems
2550 Garcia Avenue
Mountain View, CA 94043MS-DOS Server and Resolver 💻
FTP Software is working on a port of BIND to their PC/TCP environment under MS/DOS (their PC/TCP package) 🎀 They already have a resolver that depends on recursive queries. The point of contact is Philip A. Prindeville:
ARPANET: pap4@ai.ai.mit.edu
US MAIL: FTP Software Inc
P.O. Box 150
Kendall Sq. Branch
Boston, MA 02142Tops-20 Resolver 🧚
A resolver is being written in C for Tops-20 and ITS by Rob Austein 💜 He's really encouraging contacts from Tops-10, WAITS, and TENEX system programmers, so if that's you, go say hi:
ARPANET: sra@xx.lcs.mit.edu.
US MAIL: MIT LCS NE43-503
545 Technology Square
Cambridge MA 02139Symbolics Resolver 🔥
Symbolics Inc. has an implementation for the 36xx series Lisp Machines 🌈 Steven L. Sneddon is the point of contact:
ARPANET: sned@pegasus.scrc.symbolics.com
US MAIL: Manager, Networks and Communications
Symbolics, Inc.
11 Cambridge Center
Cambridge, MA 02142Xerox Cedar Resolver 🍓
Xerox has a resolver running in the Cedar language/environment at Xerox PARC ⭐ John Larson is the point of contact:
ARPANET: jlarson.pa@xerox.com
US MAIL: Xerox Palo Alto Research Center
3333 Coyote Hill Road
Palo Alto, CA 94304Harris Resolver 👑
There's a domain resolver for the Harris H series that handles canonical name, host address, name server, and mail agent (MX) records 🫶 Bruce Orchard is the point of contact:
ARPANET: orchard/bruc@scarecrow.waisman.wisc.edu
US MAIL: 549 Waisman Center
University of Wisconsin-Madison
1500 Highland Avenue
Madison, Wisconsin 53705-2280Fuzzball Server and Resolver 🌙
Dave Mills has both a server and a resolver for the so-called PDP11/LSI-11 Fuzzballs 🙈 Lowkey, these aren't complete implementations, and they don't support zone transfers and so forth. They have little use outside the fuzzball community, since the code is in assembler and isn't for Unix 💀 His addresses:
ARPANET: mills@udel.edu
US MAIL: Electrical Engineering Department
University of Delaware
Newark, DE 19716Multics Resolver 🦄
There's a resolver for Multics that's nearly ready for release ✨ Art Beattie is the point of contact:
ARPANET: beattie%pco@bco-multics.arpa
US MAIL: MS K55
Honeywell Bull
PO Box 8000
Phoenix, AZ, 85066-8000VAX/VMS Resolver 🌷
There's a partial resolver implementation (it only supports address queries and IN-ADDR PTR lookups) that's part of the CMU/TEK TCP/IP package for VAX/VMS 💖 It's written in BLISS-32, and Vince Fuller is the point of contact:
ARPANET: vince.fuller@c.cs.cmu.edu
US MAIL: Computer Science Department
Carnegie-Mellon University
Schenley Park
Pittsburgh, Pa. 15213Macintosh Resolver and Server 🍎
Tom Unger ported BIND to the Macintosh, and it's giving main character energy 💅 He did it using the Macintosh Programmer's Workshop and CITI's MacIP, which currently consists of IP, UDP, and a Berkeley style socket library. His mail addresses:
ARPANET: tom@citi.umich.edu
US MAIL: Center for Information and Technology Integration
University of Michigan
2901 Hubbard
Ann Arbor, MI 48105ORDERING INFORMATION 🧾
okay bestie, here's how to get your hands on the docs 📚 They're available online from the NIC (IP address 10.0.0.51 or 26.0.0.73) using FTP with the login ANONYMOUS and the password GUEST 🔐 RFCs live in files named RFC:RFCnnn.TXT, and they're simple ASCII files ready for printing. Pages inside each document are separated by a form feed character on a line by itself 📄
Hardcopy of the documents and software mentioned above can be obtained from the NIC or the author 🎀 Prices are available on request and are documented in DDN Newsletter #50 (12 Dec 1986). The NIC's address and phone numbers are below:
DDN Network Information Center
SRI International, Room EJ291
333 Ravenswood Avenue
Menlo Park, CA 94025
(800) 235-3155
(415) 859-3695📦 where this page comes from
- ietf: rfc1031 1987-11
- 💖 girlified by claude-haiku-5-5 on : a language model's rewrite of the original, under its terms