Scripting News - Latest Comments in I need a Domain Name Server with a REST interface (Scripting News)

Re: I need a Domain Name Server with a REST interface (Scripting News)

Henri Asseily — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 17:16:12 -0000

Using TXT is wrong for this. You should use NAPTR records.
You can rig it with TXT, but it doesn't make sense as NAPTR is specifically engineered for this.

Re: I need a Domain Name Server with a REST interface (Scripting News)

brianjesse — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 16:48:24 -0000

This is working pretty well, send me an e-mail if you'd like to try it out. brian@megapump.com

The source code is published on github:
http://github.com/voitto/rs...

####################
## creating a zone record
####################

POST vars
---------------
name = "george"
record = "TXT"
feedname = "george.loose.ly"
key = md5( subdomain.record.value.pass ) where period concatenates values of these post vars and "pass" contains password value

API endpoint
------------------------------
http://cloud.twitteronia.co...

New zone record
------------------------------
| 14 | 9 | george | TXT | | 0 | 86400 | george.loose.ly |

####################
## updating the feedname
####################

POST vars
---------------
name = "george"
record = "TXT"
feedname = "george.twitteronia.com"
key = md5( subdomain.record.value.pass ) where period concatenates values of these post vars and "pass" contains password value

API endpoint
------------------------------
http://cloud.twitteronia.co...

Updated zone record
------------------------------
| 14 | 9 | george | TXT | | 0 | 86400 | george.twitteronia.com |

######################
## updating the record data
######################

POST vars
---------------
name = "george"
record = "TXT"
feedname = "george.twitteronia.com"
feedurl = "http://george.blogspot.com/..."
key = md5( subdomain.record.value.pass ) where period concatenates values of these post vars and "pass" contains password value

API endpoint
------------------------------
http://cloud.twitteronia.co...

Updated zone record
------------------------------
| 14 | 9 | george | TXT | http://george.blogspot.com/... | 0 | 86400 | george.twitteronia.com |

#############################
## REST feed lookup from feedname
#############################

(you can try this one yourself without authentication)

POST vars
---------------
name = "george"
record = "TXT"
feedname = "george.loose.ly"

API endpoint
------------------------------
http://cloud.twitteronia.co...

(server performs a DNS lookup for TXT record at george.loose.ly)

Output
------------------------------
http://george.blogspot.com/...

Re: I need a Domain Name Server with a REST interface (Scripting News)

Henri Asseily — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 13:52:25 -0000

I have no idea what that other "serious implementation" is, but if we even haven't discussed the choice of record type to use, I can guarantee you that we're not going to get far in interoperability.
Here's my quick little thing:
http://67.23.22.13/dns/

It inserts into a .tel domain a NAPTR record of this type:
"E2U+x-feed:http" "!^.*$!http://rikkles.blogspot.com..."

It says that it's a feed ("x-feed") using the http protocol, and the replacement string is (as is the case for all NAPTR records) a fully functioning regular expression.

Re: I need a Domain Name Server with a REST interface (Scripting News)

Erik Carlin — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 12:44:00 -0000

Dave,

Rackspace would like to offer you some comped slices on Slicehost for your dev work. That will give you a RESTful interface to both compute and DNS, including TXT record manipulation. If you are interested, please e-mail me at erik.carlin at rackspace.com.

Regards,
Erik

Re: I need a Domain Name Server with a REST interface (Scripting News)

Guest — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 11:05:36 -0000

Re: I need a Domain Name Server with a REST interface (Scripting News)

Guest — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 11:04:58 -0000

Re: I need a Domain Name Server with a REST interface (Scripting News)

dave — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 09:55:29 -0000

A heads-up that there's another serious implementation that's reaching closure. I hope you guys share ideas and perhaps we could even have an interoperating REST interface for DNS administration. I would totally support that (with code of my own, on the client side).

Re: I need a Domain Name Server with a REST interface (Scripting News)

Henri Asseily — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 09:51:53 -0000

Yep I'll publish the source code that took all of 3 hours to write very soon.
By the way, there's a major issue with "let's make a simple API for the DNS" in that the DNS ain't that simple. So in order to make a simple API, you have to do the hard work of getting rid of what you don't want.
Luckily when you're using .tel domains you already have a couple of APIs you can use, and making simple wrappers for those is quite easy.

Re: I need a Domain Name Server with a REST interface (Scripting News)

sull — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 22:04:05 -0000

what do you suggest regarding the spoofing vulnerabilty?

Re: I need a Domain Name Server with a REST interface (Scripting News)

Mason Lee — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 21:55:12 -0000

For the sake of completeness, here are some problems for using DNS as a generalized service registry. They may or may not affect the 140 char loosely coupled network ("Loose.ly").

1. The DNS cache can be slow to propagate, meaning there's an indeterminate lag between modifying a service endpoint (e.g. a feed address) and being able to use it fully. The best case for DNS NAPTR records is probably a 1-5 minutes lag, but it's ultimately up to each ISP's nameserver to decide how they want to setup their cache. The shorter the TTL, the less caching you get.

2. Javascript in the browser cannot make the socket connection to do a DNS lookup. Javascript widgets will need to contact some server running an HTTP service that bridges to a DNS lookup. And of course, an HTTP service is what most developers today will want to contact in the first place, Andy's fair points above notwithstanding.

3. Lastly, a general point which probably does not affect Loose.ly's casual use case: DNS is vulnerable to easy spoofing attacks and so cannot be used for looking up some other types of service endpoints, such as OpenID's single-sign-on delegation, or OAuth's authentication endpoints, or a person's public keys for digital signatures.

Just wanted to get that on the record. None of this is to say it can't work. Obviously DNS sure is clean and simple :)

Re: I need a Domain Name Server with a REST interface (Scripting News)

sull — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 17:08:00 -0000

right, i mentioned this in my comment as well.
i have not tried dreamhost's API but the DNS hooks are there.

Re: I need a Domain Name Server with a REST interface (Scripting News)

sull — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 17:07:06 -0000

i assume you plan to release to the telnic dev community?

Re: I need a Domain Name Server with a REST interface (Scripting News)

brianjesse — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 10:05:44 -0000

I made a REST API like this, you can find the documentation at http://cloud.twitteronia.com - would love to have feedback here on whether it works. Thanks! -- Brian

Re: I need a Domain Name Server with a REST interface (Scripting News)

Guest — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 08:45:55 -0000

Re: I need a Domain Name Server with a REST interface (Scripting News)

rbonini — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 07:25:10 -0000

Don't forget guys.
If you are going to be using Friendfeed-Like long polling here, Facebook opensourced Friendfeed's web server (that just sounds wrong), named Tornado.

Find it here: http://www.tornadoweb.org/

Re: I need a Domain Name Server with a REST interface (Scripting News)

Henri Asseily — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 05:58:50 -0000

I'm pretty much done with your requested interface. I'm implementing a simple authentication mechanism right now, should be done in an hour or so.
Ping me offline for the info (http://henri.tel or twitter or whatever you prefer)

Re: I need a Domain Name Server with a REST interface (Scripting News)

Hanan Cohen — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 03:15:18 -0000

I am now sure if this is exactly what you are looking for but take a look at the API of http://dreamhost.com

http://wiki.dreamhost.com/A...

Re: I need a Domain Name Server with a REST interface (Scripting News)

Mason Lee — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 01:39:44 -0000

By the same token that developers want to use HTTP POST to register their feed, won't developers want to use HTTP GET to resolve the names to feeds?

Re: I need a Domain Name Server with a REST interface (Scripting News)

AndrewBurton — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 01:06:52 -0000

You mean something like this?

http://dvlop.in/

Re: I need a Domain Name Server with a REST interface (Scripting News)

Henri Asseily — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 00:59:58 -0000

Ok I'll try to get a prototype for you out today.
But it won't be a 'TXT' record, it'll be 'NAPTR'. Makes a lot more sense to use NAPTR, as this is a URI we're talking about, as a value.

Re: I need a Domain Name Server with a REST interface (Scripting News)

Guest — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 23:17:44 -0000

Re: I need a Domain Name Server with a REST interface (Scripting News)

dave — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 23:03:27 -0000

You need a big hug. Get going with the coding up a RESTful gateway for .tel and we;re in business. And stop worrying so much! :-)

Re: I need a Domain Name Server with a REST interface (Scripting News)

Guest — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 22:51:08 -0000

Re: I need a Domain Name Server with a REST interface (Scripting News)

mterenzio — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 22:38:30 -0000

The long polling is interesting. I'm working on that. Some claim that eases resources on the edge and that makes sense.

But I was thinking today. One argument is that we need to remove the burden from the publisher, so they don't get thousands of requests when they notify everyone of new content.

And I say, "Okay. Put their feed on S3 or some other CDN if they are big enough to need it." Burden over.

Is there someone that would be willing to have a central "hub" deliver their content to subscribers and relieve their burden, but unwilling to have a neutral host serve it and relieve their burden?

Explain to me where the problem lies.

Another meetup? Yeah!!!! I want Corned Beef or Pizza this time. Lombardis or Katz! They don't eat this well at those fancy conferences! ; )

Re: I need a Domain Name Server with a REST interface (Scripting News)

dave — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 22:20:10 -0000

I don't want SOAP or JSON -- I want REST.

I know what I'm taking about Andy. I know how to listen to people, and I know what they will go for.

And right now -- in 2009 that's REST.

I do get annoyed when people say I want to put the entire cloud under one namespace. That would be idiotic. I am not an idiot. You shoudl have rejected the notion based on that alone.