## Status
-Alpha. It is insufficiently tested, and there are loose ends in the
-functionality. For example, version in the `SOA` record is bogus.
-Some of the the problems are due to incomplete and/or imprecise
-[definition of the domain data format](https://wiki.namecoin.info/index.php?title=Domain_Name_Specification)
-on the wiki. That said, I am using it to access some of the `.bit` websites
-and did not notice anomalies so far.
+Beta. It is mostly feature-complete, but insufficiently tested.
+It implements the
+[data format specification](http://www.average.org/pdns-pipe-nmc/spec.html)
+(SPEC.md in the source distribution) that slightly deviates from the
+[official specification](https://wiki.namecoin.info/index.php?title=Domain_Name_Specification).
+I am using it to access some of the `.bit` websites and it works
+for me.
Try at your risk.
## Unsolved problems
-The biggest problem by far is generating meaningful `SOA` records. DNS
-infrastructure (including PowerDNS implementation) relies on the "generation"
-field of the `SOA` RR when it makes decision to invalidate the cache. So,
-if there is zone data in the DNS cache, and a DNS server needs to respond
-to a request about an object from that zone, it first checks if the TTL
-has expired. If it has not, the server takes the data from the cache. If
-it has expired, the server asks the "authoritative source" (which is in
-our case the dnamecoin daemon) for the SOA record and compares the
-generation count in the received response with the number kept in the
-cache. If the "authoritative" SOA does not have a greater generation
-count than the cached SOA, DNS server **does not** refresh its cache,
-presuming that the data there is still valid.
+The biggest problem by far is generating meaningful `SOA` records.
+
+### SOA Version a.k.a. Generation Count
+
+DNS infrastructure (including PowerDNS implementation) relies on the
+"generation" field of the `SOA` RR when it makes decision to invalidate
+the cache. So, if there is zone data in the DNS cache, and a DNS server
+needs to respond to a request about an object from that zone, it first
+checks if the TTL has expired. If it has not, the server takes the data
+from the cache. If it has expired, the server asks the "authoritative
+source" (which is in our case the dnamecoin daemon) for the SOA record
+and compares the generation count in the received response with the
+number kept in the cache. If the "authoritative" SOA does not have a
+greater generation count than the cached SOA, DNS server **does not**
+refresh its cache, presuming that the data there is still valid.
So, it is important that the generation count in the SOA record is
incremented every time when the domain object, or any of the object that
SOA record is requested. That would invalidate the reason to have
caching in the first place.
-One possible workaround would be to use some derivative of absolute
-time, such as the number of hours elapsed since the epoch, for the
-SOA generation count.
+One possible workaround, currently implemented in `pdns-pipe-nmc`, is to
+use a derivative of absolute time, in our case the number of 10-munute
+intervals elapsed since Namecoin was concieved, as the SOA generation
+count.
+
+### Nameserver field
-At the time of this writing, `pdns-pipe-nmc` simply reports zero as
-the SOA generation count. This leads to stale results until `pdnsd`
-is restarted.
+There is no "reasonable" value that could be placed there. Except
+possibly the name of the host on which the PoweDNS instance is running,
+in the `.bit` zone. Currently, `pdns-pipe-nmc` just puts a dot "."
+there, and no problems where noticed so far.
## Getting the Software
| Executable file | PGP |
|----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|---------------------------------------------------------------------|
-| [pdns-pipe-nmc.linux-glibc6.x86_64.2014-04-20.git-e9bd43f](pdns-pipe-nmc.linux-glibc6.x86_64.2014-04-20.git-e9bd43f) | [sig](pdns-pipe-nmc.linux-glibc6.x86_64.2014-04-20.git-e9bd43f.sig) |
+| [**pdns-pipe-nmc.linux-glibc6.x86_64.2014-04-22.git-108b6c2**](http://www.average.org/pdns-pipe-nmc/pdns-pipe-nmc.linux-glibc6.x86_64.2014-04-22.git-108b6c2) | [sig](http://www.average.org/pdns-pipe-nmc/pdns-pipe-nmc.linux-glibc6.x86_64.2014-04-22.git-108b6c2.sig) |
+| [pdns-pipe-nmc.linux-glibc6.x86_64.2014-04-20.git-e9bd43f](http://www.average.org/pdns-pipe-nmc/pdns-pipe-nmc.linux-glibc6.x86_64.2014-04-20.git-e9bd43f) | [sig](http://www.average.org/pdns-pipe-nmc/pdns-pipe-nmc.linux-glibc6.x86_64.2014-04-20.git-e9bd43f.sig) |
## Author
projects / pdns-pipe-nmc.git / blobdiff