Forwarding: The decision, whether to employ it, is *complex*, kids.

[Kevin D. Goodknecht Sr. [MVP]]

In news:c1.01.2thvzy$5AJ at J.de.Boyne.Pollard.localhost,
Jonathan de Boyne Pollard <J.deBoynePollard at Tesco.NET> commented
Then Kevin replied below:
> In the discussion forum for ISC's BIND, DevilsPGD has
> just written:
>
>
>     Why are you using forwarding? This is silly,
> dangerous and pointless.

This is an opinion by the poster and is not supported with any data to prove
that "This is silly, dangerous and pointless".

>   I agree 100% with the above -- I'm curious, can anybody
> tell me why the whole forwarding fetish seems to be so
> popular, especially in printed books and documentation
> and MCSEs?

I'm not surprised that you would agree with this, Jonathan.

>   Most crackerjack box MCSEs are not only stupid, but
> lazy -- Setting up forwarding takes a few more seconds
> then not setting up forwarding, so what's the benefit?

I'm not an MCSE, but personally attacking MCSEs does not advance your theory
beyond the opinion that forwarding should never be used, is only an opinion,
with no evidence given to support it.

> I was going to point out that, thanks to a lot of effort
> in several discussions during 2003 and 2004, the received
> wisdom in the Microsoft discussion fora that one should,
> unequivocally, use forwarding has been wiped out, and has
> been largely replaced by the far better wisdom that
> choosing whether to employ forwarding is a complex
> decision that involves quite a number of criteria, and
> two different situations aren't necessarily going to
> yield the same answer.

Now this statement I can somewhat support, whether one uses forwarding does
involve a decision based on criteria that changes from instance to instance.

> But it appears that I would have been wrong: It hasn't
> been wiped out.  You even provided DevilsPGD with more
> ammunition for his comments on "crackerjack box MCSEs".
>
> I can still point out that the current received wisdom in
> the ISC discussion fora that he is parroting - that one
> should, unequivocally, never use forwarding - is just as
> absolute and thus just as wrong as the erstwhile
> Microsoft discussion fora received wisdom was, and that
> the ISC discussion forum is suffering from the disease of
> entrenched bad received wisdom on this subject more than
> the Microsoft ones are at the moment.
> I can also point out that what he said about
> documentation wasn't quite true.  Microsoft's own
> KnowledgeBase article on the subject, whilst being very
> misleadingly phrased, does not, if read carefully, say
> that one is required to configure forwarding.  It says
> "If this server needs to resolve names from its Internet
> service provider (ISP), you should configure a
> forwarder.".  The first word, "if", is very important,
> but much overlooked.
>
> The reason that it is popular to unequivocally recommend
> forwarding in other documentation is that in the large
> majority of cases that other documentation is written and
> published by ISPs, and as I have pointed out before, it
> is in ISPs' own self-interests to encourage their
> customers to use ISP-provided proxy services, be they (as
> here) proxy DNS services, proxy HTTP services, or others.
> It cuts down on the bandwidth costs that the ISPs have to
> pay.  It isn't necessarily better for the customers
> themselves.

It is true that one should never say, unequivocally, that one should or
should not, use a forwarder.
A forwarder can show benefit to some users that have only a dial-up or ISDN
connection, or where bandwidth use is critical. One has to remember that
some ISP's still charge by the kilobyte, some will only give you access to
their DNS servers, while most give you full access without limits.
Sometimes, whether one uses a forwarder or not, is based merely on market
forces.

Whenever I make my recommendations, one way or the other, I use the phrase
"may use a forwarder".
I cannot say, one should or should use a forwarder, unless I know as many
facts about the network and ISP's requirement as I can, and I have tested
DNS with and without a forwarder.

Jonathan, you have proven to be very intelligent in your postings, but you
have also proven yourself to be somewhat of an elitist, and your group
manner is sometimes less that respectable. We are here to assist, not to
impugn posters.


-- 
Best regards,
Kevin D4 Dad Goodknecht Sr. [MVP]
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