On Thu, 1 Feb 2001, Eric A. Hall wrote:
[assorted quote depths]
(1) 8.2.3 Doesn't accept the "(" in the SOA string to be on the next line after the IN SOA. Our script-generated zonefiles, about 45000 of them, all had this.
Neither do the relevant RFC's, or any other DNS implementation. Pre-8.2.3 was simply _wrong_ to accept that syntax.
Is there any particular harm from accepting this syntax.
No and Yes. No in that an argument could be made that the old parsing routine fell under the "be liberal in what you accept" rules. Yes in that the Master File Format is intended to provide an interchangable database table, so while BIND may have been liberal it was doing so at the expense of some interoperability measures.
RFC 1122 s1.2.2 may not apply directly to configuration files, but the spirit is good. The bracket acceptance would be classed as a fault-tolerance feature, if BIND had a marketing department and glossy brochures :) I can understand the annoyance felt by a large hosting provider updating BIND in an emergency and finding more than just a security fix. Pim is, I guess, concerned that similar updates in future may have longer MTTR impact. Pete Elke's point about preproduction testing could perhaps be turned from a combative tone to the constructive without loss of information. joshua