Technical Summary
The document provides a new and complete definition of the AXFR
portion of the DNS protocols, as originally specified in RFCs 1034
and 1035. Some regard the original AXFR specification as
underspecified, and this document attempts to rectify that by
specifying AXFR in modern language and consistent with the way the
interoperating AXFR mechanism exists on the Internet.
Working Group Summary
The document has emerged from the Working Group after a long and
somewhat controversial history. In the past there were very
serious challenges both to the document and to the operation of
the Working Group due to disputes about the document. These
disputes find reflection in the text as it appears today.
Protocol Quality
The document has been written with an eye to the actually existing
deployed instances of AXFR on the Internet, while attempting to
specify AXFR as carefully and completely as possible using modern
protocol language (the original specification of AXFR predates RFC
2119).
The document has been through years of review by the protocol
experts in the DNS Extensions Working Group.
RFC Editor Note
Please be sure to use draft-ietf-dnsext-axfr-clarify-14.txt when
preparing the RFC for this spec.