On 17/06/20 03:23, Rob Janssen via 44Net wrote:
I notice that more and more 44net traffic originates from addresses that are not registered in DNS. To identify an amateur radio transmission, it is required in most countries that the callsign is included in transmissions. Up to now I have considered traffic from a net44 address to be identified by the reverse name that can be looked up in DNS, and that has the basic structure of "hostname.callsign.ampr.org" (with of course some variations, but always the callsign of the responsible station is part of the name).
Hmm, I've been more inclined to consider something transmitted directly by MY station as the important legal identifier - e.g. AX.25 origin callsign, and for the 44.190.x.x subnet, there's no legal requirement, since that's technically not on the air.
I think everyone should be encouraged (or even required) to register all used addresses in DNS. There may have been some hurdles to do that in the past (e.g. the never completed DNS part of the portal, the unavoidable restrictions of the ampraddr robot to accept only updates from coordinators).
I have no issues with any DNS registrations per se, but I do find the current process of going through a coordinator to be a major barrier. I tend to be someone eho takes a few goes at getting things right, then leaving them for a lengthy period of time, until the next significant upgrades.
But the current process is not really helpful to me. It's the same reason I never got into DXing - the paperwork and processes (with QSL cards in that example). :)
Everyone who has e.g. a number of hosts in the 44.190 or other not nationally registered parts of the network can send a list of their IP addresses and corresponding hostnames (with names like the above, i.e. a callsign embedded in them) to me, then I can submit them to the robot and they get registered in the ampr.org main DNS service. Otherwise please register your hosts through your local coordinator, even when you have been allocated an entire subnet.
That I would have to generate automatically, there's a LOT! (at least 200), though they are pretty generic
Furthermore, I see that more and more subnets have arranged to delegate DNS to their own servers. I think it would have been better to keep everything in a single list and then run a secondary zone within the own network (we do that here), instead of this split. Maybe a more convenient API for updating the main DNS should be (or would have had to be) added to avoid this? Or are there other reasons for operating this way?
I would find operating with my own DNS servers much easier, it's the administrative overhead that's the barrier, and besides everywhere else, I am in control of my own DNS, even when running on someone else's servers (except for IPv4 reverse, because I don't control those address spaces).
Given that we now have this situation, I think there should be a general policy of allowing AXFR and preferably also IXFR zone-transfers of these zones between net44 addresses. We should not have "dark and secret" zones that are inaccessible to others, I think, especially for the reverse (PTR) zones.
Hmm, there's a difference between delegation and "dark and secret". This seems to conflate the two. :/