[MLB-WIRELESS] DNS: What is our zone going to look like?

[Russell Smith]

Hi,

I know we don't have any firm answers on who controls the melbourne wireless domains on the internet.  But that does not stop use deciding on what we are doing going forward on the internal DNS resolution.

The two pages on the wiki are;
http://www.melbourne.wireless.org.au/wiki/?DNSConvention
http://www.melbourne.wireless.org.au/wiki/?DNS

Both of these appear quite old and don't have any future direction or people setting them up :)  I don't like what's presented in DNSConvention and have outlined a proposal below for comment.


We gave two domains for melbourne wireless.  One wireless.org.au, one melbournewirless.org.au.

http://melbourne.wireless.org.au/
http://melbournewireless.org.au/

For portability and the ability to map all wireless networks into one DNS space, wireless.org.au would be good to continue to use.  If we connect to other states, we can have adelaide.wireless.org.au or even geelong.wireless.org.au.  For setting up DNS it needs to be decided which domain we are going to use as a base.

Q1: What are your thoughts?

I think the best option is to use wireless.org.au for everything.  It along with the fact I believe a root domain complicates life and doesn't allow you to easily run internal and external facing websites with the same DNS name.

1. Other cities can come on board with that same domain name.  eg adelaide.wireless.org.au, geelong.wireless.org.au
2. We can resolve names to varying lengths of short when inside the network.  in melbourne;  http://gw.kct/ is my gateway, for geelong it's;
http://gw.abc.geelong/
3. Easy forwarding to other DNS servers, don't need to query root and do
recursive.
4. Easy setup, no mucking with roots, complicated forwarding and the like.
5. Split DNS.  You can allow internet clients to resolve certain nodes
if we like, eg; http://gw.kct.melbourne.wireless.org.au/

possible downsides are;
1. need to disallow creation of a www node as people will assume it's the website.  And it is externally.
2. You need to maintain the DNS both on the Internet and on MW for the relevant external records.  eg mail, www

Q2: Is this a good format and what format would you propose/support?
I know Mike has suggested http://www.kct.node.melbourne.wireless.org.au/

I expect we would set MW clients to set their DNS to the internal DNS server and receive all of their DNS resolution through MW.  As far as I'm aware it's going to be very difficult to make it any easier for your average user to connect and get DNS resolution.

Q3: Ideas about making DNS easy for clients?


I'd also say melbournewireless.org.au should be a 301
redirect to www.melbourne.wireless.org.au so you are using consistent
names both inside and outside the network for our website.

The only configuration that's required at the client end is the add the
following into their DNS suffixes.  

You would add;  melbourne.wireless.org.au wireless.org.au
That can be done on the dhcp server or on the client.    And instantly you can resolve all short names.

Q4: Anything else to contribute?

Regards

Russell