Re: [Bug 12965] New: Problem: I want to perform DNS queries from a HTML5 app, but the networking functions available are too restrictive to build a stub resolver. Why: DNS is not just for machines - zones may contain extremely useful and rich informa

http://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=12965
>           Summary: Problem: I want to perform DNS queries from a HTML5
>                    app, but the networking functions available are too
>                    restrictive to build a stub resolver. Why: DNS is not
>                    just for machines - zones may contain extremely useful

> Comment:
> Problem: I want to perform DNS queries from a HTML5 app, but the networking
> functions available are too restrictive to build a stub resolver.
>
> Why: DNS is not just for machines - zones may contain extremely useful and
> rich information for humans too, e.g. the .tel TLD was provisioned
> specifically to publish contact information (i.e. URIs) as DNS records (i.e.
> NAPTR, TXT, LOC), there's also e164.arpa, and perhaps further innovation will
> happen at the DNS layer in the future.
>
> Solution: Define a DNS interface.

Some computers live behind proxies which do not provide for client
based dns lookups. instead a client tells the proxy "i would like to
talk to <host>" or "i would like to get <url>" and the proxy says
"here's a connection for <host>" or "here's the data for <url>".

An API for doing DNS work will not work in such situations. What you
will probably have is something that "usually works" but fails on any
interesting corporate network, which is unfortunate.

This is the general reason that DNS APIs aren't exposed. The other
reason is that DNS can easily include private information and browsers
aren't particularly good at understanding what is private and
shouldn't be exposed to web apps.

I just finished reading
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=354493 the bug report is
5 years old and unfinished, the problem is much older. Once fixed, I'm
pretty sure it still won't handle the proxy cases.

We really aren't in a position to add more attack surfaces until
browser vendors manage to clean up the current surfaces (especially
including that bug).

Received on Thursday, 16 June 2011 03:32:40 UTC