[nsd-users] <character-string> processing

[Matthijs Mekking]

Hi,

On 02/06/2014 09:15 PM, Mukund Sivaraman wrote:
> Hi all
> 
> We were discussing <character-string> (RFC 1035) parsing in BIND 10,
> when parsing the following line in a master file:
> 
> example.org. IN TXT Test-String"Test-String"
> 
> BIND 9 parses this as two <character-strings> (one quoted and another
> unquoted) and they end up in a single RR, with RDATA as:
> 
> 0x0b, 'T', 'e', 's', 't', '-', 'S', 't', 'r', 'i', 'n', 'g',
> 0x0b, 'T', 'e', 's', 't', '-', 'S', 't', 'r', 'i', 'n', 'g'
> 
> RDLENGTH = 0x0018
> 
> Are you are aware, this wire data represents the TXT data
> "Test-StringTest-String" (as a concatenation of multiple
> <character-string>s - see TXT in RFC 1035 and RFC 4408 section 3.1.3 if
> you want some description).
> 
> We wanted to implement the same behavior in BIND 10 (as the master
> loader is based on BIND 9 and we want to support existing BIND 9 master
> files). But there is some argument^wdiscussion whether this is the right
> behaviour, because the description of <character-string> in 1035 when
> taken very strictly does not state that " can be the start of a new
> token. If one were to strictly read it, it would mean that the entire
> Test-String"Test-String" is to be lexed as a single <character-string>
> token with all these octets appearing in it.
> 
> I tried to test what NSD's behavior is with this line, but nsd-3.2.15 in
> Fedora 20 failed to parse it and didn't load the zone. I was asked by
> Shane to inform you, so that's the report. :)

According to RFC 1035, Section 5.1:

<character-string> is expressed in one or two ways: as a contiguous set
of characters without interior spaces, or as a string beginning with a "
and ending with a ".  Inside a " delimited string any character can
occur, except for a " itself, which must be quoted using \ (back slash).

I interpret this as NSD should be able to accept this record.

> example.org. IN TXT Test-String"Test-String"

I too interpret the text in 1035 such that it should be considered as
one <character-string> and thus the RDATA would become.

> 0x18, 'T', 'e', 's', 't', '-', 'S', 't', 'r', 'i', 'n', 'g', '"' 'T',
'e', 's', 't', '-', 'S', 't', 'r', 'i', 'n', 'g', '"'

Otherwise, failing to load this record seems appropriate, and the user
should escape the '"' characters or whitespace, depending on what is
actually meant.

Best regards,
  Matthijs


> 
> 		Mukund
> 
> 
> 
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