SRV records

[Carsten Strotmann]

Hi Evert,
Hi List,

Evert Pot <me at evertpot.com> writes:
>
> It occurred to me that it would be nice if I could use DNS SRV 
> records
> to point gemini:// clients to a different host. However, after 
> reading
> the spec it doesn't seem like there is support for this.

The SRV record might be superceded by the SVCB/HTTPSSVC record:

Service binding and parameter specification via the DNS (DNS SVCB 
and HTTPSSVC)
<https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-dnsop-svcb-httpssvc>

Goolge is experimenting with this to be able to upgrade HTTPS 
sessions
to QUIC, while Apple seems to use it to discover DoT/DoH resolver 
for
the upcoming MacOS 11 and iOS 14.

SVCB/HTTPSSVC is an Internet Draft, it will likely change (a lot) 
until
reaching RFC status, or it might expire (not reach RFC status at 
all).

The problems remains that OS resovler libraries (libc) do not 
support DNS
records other than A/AAAA and a handful of others.

Libraries like GetDNSAPI <https://getdnsapi.net/> need to be used 
to retrieve
these records.

Gemini server discovery could be discussed in a document separate 
of the
Gemini protocol spec.

Client implementations could optionally implement support for 
finding
Gemini server via SRV, SVCB, mDNS or other discovery protocols.

Greetings

Carsten