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+Network Working Group                                         C. Farrell
+Request for Comments: 1712                                    M. Schulze
+Category: Experimental                                       S. Pleitner
+                                                              D. Baldoni
+                                         Curtin University of Technology
+                                                           November 1994
+
+
+                 DNS Encoding of Geographical Location
+
+Status of this Memo
+
+   This memo defines an Experimental Protocol for the Internet
+   community.  This memo does not specify an Internet standard of any
+   kind.  Discussion and suggestions for improvement are requested.
+   Distribution of this memo is unlimited.
+
+Abstract
+
+   This document defines the format of a new Resource Record (RR) for
+   the Domain Naming System (DNS), and reserves a corresponding DNS type
+   mnemonic and numerical code.  This definition deals with associating
+   geographical host location mappings to host names within a domain.
+   The data shown in this document is fictitious and does not
+   necessarily reflect the real Internet.
+
+1. Introduction
+
+   It has been a long standing problem to relate IP numbers to
+   geographical locations. The availability of Geographical location
+   information has immediate applications in network management.  Such
+   information can be used to supplement the data already provided by
+   utilities such as whois [Har85], traceroute [VJ89], and nslookup
+   [UCB89].  The usefulness and functionality of these already widely
+   used tools would be greatly enhanced by the provision of reliable
+   geographical location information.
+
+   The ideal way to manage and maintain a database of information, such
+   as geographical location of internet hosts, is to delegate
+   responsibility to local domain administrators. A large distributed
+   database could be implemented with a simple mechanism for updating
+   the local information.  A query mechanism also has to be available
+   for checking local entries, as well as inquiring about data from
+   non-local domains.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Farrell, Schulze, Pleitner & Baldoni                            [Page 1]
+
+RFC 1712         DNS Encoding of Geographical Location     November 1994
+
+
+2. Background
+
+   The Internet continues to grow at an ever increasing rate with IP
+   numbers allocated on a first-come-first-serve basis.  Deciding when
+   and how to setup a database of geographical information about
+   internet hosts presented a number of options.  The uumap project
+   [UU85] was the first serious attempt to collect geographical location
+   data from sites and store it centrally.  This project met with
+   limited success because of the difficulty in maintaining and updating
+   a large central database.  Another problem was the lack of tools for
+   the checking the data supplied, this problem resulted in some
+   erroneous data entering the database.
+
+2.1 SNMP:
+
+   Using an SNMP get request on the sysLocation MIB (Management
+   Information Base) variable was also an option, however this would
+   require the host to be running an appropriate agent with public read
+   access.  It was also felt that MIB data should reflect local
+   management data (e.g., "this" host is on level 5 room 74) rather than
+   a hosts geographical position.  This view is supported in the
+   examples given in literature in this area [ROSE91].
+
+2.2 X500:
+
+   The X.500 Directory service [X.500.88] defined as part of the ISO
+   standards also appears as a potential provider of geographical
+   location data. However due to the limited implementations of this
+   service it was decided to defer this until this service gains wider
+   use and acceptance within the Internet community.
+
+2.3 BIND:
+
+   The DNS [Mock87a][Mock87b] represents an existing system ideally
+   suited to the provision of host specific information. The DNS is a
+   widely used and well-understood mechanism for providing a distributed
+   database of such information and its extensible nature allows it to
+   be used to disseminate virtually any information.  The most commonly
+   used DNS implementation is the Berkeley Internet Name Domain server
+   BIND [UCB89].  The information we wished to make available needed to
+   be updated locally but available globally; a perfect match with the
+   services provided by the DNS. Current DNS servers provide a variety
+   of useful information about hosts in their domain but lack the
+   ability to report a host's geographical location.
+
+
+
+
+
+
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+Farrell, Schulze, Pleitner & Baldoni                            [Page 2]
+
+RFC 1712         DNS Encoding of Geographical Location     November 1994
+
+
+3. RDATA Format
+
+        MSB                                        LSB
+        +--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+
+        /                 LONGITUDE                  /
+        +--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+
+        /                  LATITUDE                  /
+        +--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+
+        /                  ALTITUDE                  /
+        +--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+
+
+   where:
+
+   LONGITUDE The real number describing the longitude encoded as a
+             printable string. The precision is limited by 256 charcters
+             within the range -90..90 degrees. Positive numbers
+             indicate locations north of the equator.
+
+   LATITUDE The real number describing the latitude encoded as a
+            printable string. The precision is limited by 256 charcters
+            within the range -180..180 degrees. Positive numbers
+            indicate locations east of the prime meridian.
+
+   ALTITUDE The real number describing the altitude (in meters) from
+            mean sea-level encoded as a printable string. The precision
+            is limited by 256 charcters. Positive numbers indicate
+            locations above mean sea-level.
+
+   Latitude/Longitude/Altitude values are encoded as strings as to avoid
+   the precision limitations imposed by encoding as unsigned integers.
+   Although this might not be considered optimal, it allows for a very
+   high degree of precision with an acceptable average encoded record
+   length.
+
+4. The GPOS RR
+
+   The geographical location is defined with the mnemonic GPOS and type
+   code 27.
+
+   GPOS has the following format:
+           <owner> <ttl> <class> GPOS <longitude> <latitude> <altitude>
+
+   A floating point format was chosen to specify geographical locations
+   for reasons of simplicity.  This also guarantees a concise
+   unambiguous description of a location by enforcing three compulsory
+   numerical values to be specified.
+
+
+
+
+
+Farrell, Schulze, Pleitner & Baldoni                            [Page 3]
+
+RFC 1712         DNS Encoding of Geographical Location     November 1994
+
+
+   The owner, ttl, and class fields are optional and default to the last
+   defined value if omitted. The longitude is a floating point number
+   ranging from -90 to 90 with positive values indicating locations
+   north of the equator.  For example Perth, Western Australia is
+   located at 32^ 7` 19" south of the equator which would be specified
+   as -32.68820.  The latitude is a number ranging from -180.0 to 180.0.
+   For example Perth, Western Australia is located at 116^ 2' 25" east
+   of the prime meridian which would be specified as 116.86520.  Curtin
+   University, Perth is also 10 meters above sea-level.
+
+   The valid GPOS record for a host at Curtin University in  Perth
+   Western Australia would therefore be:
+
+                GPOS -32.6882 116.8652 10.0
+
+   There is no limit imposed on the number of decimal places, although
+   the length of the encoded string is limited to 256 characters for
+   each field. It is also suggested that administrators limit their
+   entries to the minimum number of necessary characters in each field.
+
+5. Master File Format
+
+   Each host requires its own GPOS field in the corresponding  DNS RR to
+   explicitly specify its geographical location and altitude.  If the
+   GPOS field is omitted, a DNS enquiry will return no position
+   information for that host.
+
+   Consider the following example:
+
+; Authoritative data for cs.curtin.edu.au.
+;
+@     IN    SOA     marsh.cs.curtin.edu.au. postmaster.cs.curtin.edu.au.
+                (
+                        94070503        ; Serial (yymmddnn)
+                        10800           ; Refresh (3 hours)
+                        3600            ; Retry (1 hour)
+                        3600000         ; Expire (1000 hours)
+                        86400           ; Minimum (24 hours)
+                )
+
+                IN      NS      marsh.cs.curtin.edu.au.
+
+marsh           IN      A       134.7.1.1
+                IN      MX      0       marsh
+                IN      HINFO   SGI-Indigo IRIX-4.0.5F
+                IN      GPOS    -32.6882 116.8652 10.0
+ftp             IN      CNAME   marsh
+
+
+
+
+Farrell, Schulze, Pleitner & Baldoni                            [Page 4]
+
+RFC 1712         DNS Encoding of Geographical Location     November 1994
+
+
+lillee          IN      A       134.7.1.2
+                IN      MX      0       marsh
+                IN      HINFO   SGI-Indigo IRIX-4.0.5F
+                IN      GPOS    -32.6882 116.8652 10.0
+
+hinault         IN      A       134.7.1.23
+                IN      MX      0       marsh
+                IN      HINFO   SUN-IPC SunOS-4.1.3
+                IN      GPOS    -22.6882 116.8652 250.0
+
+merckx          IN      A       134.7.1.24
+                IN      MX      0       marsh
+                IN      HINFO   SUN-IPC SunOS-4.1.1
+
+ambrose         IN      A       134.7.1.99
+                IN      MX      0       marsh
+                IN      HINFO   SGI-CHALLENGE_L IRIX-5.2
+                IN      GPOS    -32.6882 116.8652 10.0
+
+   The hosts marsh, lillee, and ambrose are all at the same geographical
+   location, Perth Western Australia (-32.68820 116.86520). The host
+   hinault is at a different geographical location, 10 degrees north of
+   Perth in the mountains (-22.6882 116.8652 250.0). For security
+   reasons we do not wish to give the location of the host merckx.
+
+   Although the GPOS clause is not a standard entry within BIND
+   configuration files, most vendor implementations seem to ignore
+   whatever is not understood upon startup of the DNS.  Usually this
+   will result in a number of warnings appearing in system log files,
+   but in no way alters naming information or impedes the DNS from
+   performing its normal duties.
+
+
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+Farrell, Schulze, Pleitner & Baldoni                            [Page 5]
+
+RFC 1712         DNS Encoding of Geographical Location     November 1994
+
+
+7. References
+
+   [ROSE91]        Rose M., "The Simple Book: An Introduction to
+                   Management of TCP/IP-based Internets", Prentice-Hall,
+                   Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, 1991.
+
+   [X.500.88]      CCITT: The Directory - Overview of Concepts, Models
+                   and Services", Recommendations X.500 - X.521.
+
+   [Har82]         Harrenstein K, Stahl M., and E. Feinler,
+                   "NICNAME/WHOIS" RFC 812, SRI NIC, March 1982.
+
+   [Mock87a]       Mockapetris P., "Domain Names - Concepts and
+                   Facilities", STD 13, RFC 1034, USC/Information
+                   Sciences Institute, November 1987.
+
+   [Mock87b]       Mockapetris P., "Domain Names - Implementation and
+                   Specification", STD 13, RFC 1035, USC/Information
+                   Sciences Institute, November 1987.
+
+   [FRB93]         Ford P., Rekhter Y., and H-W. Braun, "Improving the
+                   Routing and Addressing of IP", IEEE Network
+                   Vol.7, No. 3, pp. 11-15, May 1993.
+
+   [VJ89]          Jacobsen V., "The Traceroute(8) Manual Page",
+                   Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, Berkeley,
+                   CA, February 1989.
+
+   [UCB89]         University of California, "BIND: Berkeley Internet
+                   Name Domain Server", 1989.
+   [UU85]          UUCP Mapping Project, Software available via
+                   anonymous FTP from ftp.uu.net., 1985.
+
+8. Security Considerations
+
+   Once information has been entered into the DNS, it is considered
+   public.
+
+
+
+
+
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+Farrell, Schulze, Pleitner & Baldoni                            [Page 6]
+
+RFC 1712         DNS Encoding of Geographical Location     November 1994
+
+
+9. Authors' Addresses
+
+   Craig Farrell
+   Department of Computer Science
+   Curtin University of technology
+   GPO Box U1987 Perth,
+   Western Australia
+
+   EMail: craig@cs.curtin.edu.au
+
+
+   Mike Schulze
+   Department of Computer Science
+   Curtin University of technology
+   GPO Box U1987 Perth,
+   Western Australia
+
+   EMail: mike@cs.curtin.edu.au
+
+
+   Scott Pleitner
+   Department of Computer Science
+   Curtin University of technology
+   GPO Box U1987 Perth,
+   Western Australia
+
+   EMail: pleitner@cs.curtin.edu.au
+
+
+   Daniel Baldoni
+   Department of Computer Science
+   Curtin University of technology
+   GPO Box U1987 Perth,
+   Western Australia
+
+   EMail: flint@cs.curtin.edu.au
+
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+Farrell, Schulze, Pleitner & Baldoni                            [Page 7]
+