So, vendor extension namespaces make sense when they need a 'playground' to operate within for instance-to-instance interoperability. How would that work here -- what's the case for a "vendor-specific" database that *isn't* referred to by others?
> On 23 Feb 2026, at 4:52 pm, Michael Richardson <[email protected]> wrote: > > > Mark Nottingham <[email protected]> wrote: >>> And to this an extension set of vendor-specific codes, perhaps based upon >>> PEN. >>> DHCP, Radius, PPP all did essentially this, with acknowleged mixed success >>> (particularly the DHCP codes that were kinda/sorta/not-really returned... >>> and >>> some MS-PPP codes that were not replaced with standards, and also not well >>> enough described at times) > >> I'm afraid you've lost me... could you explain the use case? > > DHCP, PPP, RADIUS have a rich set of IETF defined options that (now) cover > 99% of uses. That wasn't always the case... all three have various ways for > a "vendor" to extend the set to create their own namespaces. This has not > always worked as well as we'd all want, for instance: > > https://www.iana.org/assignments/bootp-dhcp-parameters/bootp-dhcp-parameters.xhtml#options > https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc1048 > > Well... some the details just do not pop out anymore. Sorry. > (I wonder if wikipedia's version is better) > > Basically, there was a chunk of option space that was for vendor extensions, > and there were many. When they got standardized sometimes the old ones went > away, and sometimes they didn't. And for DHCPv4, that chunk was returned. > > And yeah, I'm kinda surprised at how murky this is :-) > > There was a point where there was an IPCP/DHCP [not the same thing, which > itself many said was a mistake] vendor option from MS to set the DNS server. > And then an IETF one. Remember that this was before IANA Considerations.. or > IANA. > > RADIUS is maybe clearer in the document history > https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc2865#section-5.26 > > In short, I think it's okay to get 80% there, allow for some unique extension > space, and with good faith stuff moves from "VSA" to main profile, and the > VSA goes away. > > > -- > Michael Richardson <[email protected]> . o O ( IPv6 IøT consulting ) > Sandelman Software Works Inc, Ottawa and Worldwide > > > > -- Mark Nottingham https://www.mnot.net/ _______________________________________________ DNSOP mailing list -- [email protected] To unsubscribe send an email to [email protected]
