A5: Proposal for encoding grpclb data in DNS.

A5-grpclb-in-dns.md

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+Load Balancing and DNS
+----
+* Author(s): Mark D. Roth (roth@google.com)
+* Approver: a11r
+* Status: Draft
+* Implemented in:
+* Last updated: 2017-05-01
+* Discussion at: https://groups.google.com/d/topic/grpc-io/6be1QsHyZkk/discussion
+
+## Abstract
+
+This document describes how additional name service data for load
+balancing should be encoded in DNS.
+
+## Background
+
+As described in the [name
+resolution](https://github.com/grpc/grpc/blob/master/doc/naming.md) doc,
+a resolver implementation is expected to return two additional pieces of
+data with each address, both related to [load
+balancing](https://github.com/grpc/grpc/blob/master/doc/load-balancing.md).
+Those two pieces of data are:
+
+- A boolean indicating whether the address is a backend address (i.e.,
+  the address to use to contact the server directly) or a balancer
+  address.
+
+- The name of the balancer, if the address is a balancer address.
+  This will be used to perform peer authorization.
+
+This document describes how those two pieces of data should be encoded
+when the name service is DNS.
+
+### Related Proposals: 
+
+N/A
+
+## Proposal
+
+This proposal makes use of DNS SRV records, as described in
+[RFC-2782](https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2782).  The SRV record for
+grpclb will use the following values:
+
+- service name: `grpclb`
+- protocol: `tcp`
+- priority: this will be `0` for all grpclb SRV records
+- weight: this will be `0` for all grpclb SRV records
+
+When the gRPC client library opens a channel for a given server name,
+it will ask DNS for these SRV records in addition to the normal address
+records.  For each SRV record that comes back in the response, the
+client library will then do a DNS lookup for address records for the name
+specified by the SRV record.  It will then return each of the resulting
+addresses with the extra fields indicating that the addresses are
+balancer addresses and the name from the SRV record.
+
+Note that the gRPC library will ignore the values of the `priority` and
+`weight` fields.  Instead, it will put all balancer addresses into a
+single list (in whatever order the DNS server returns them) and use the
+`pick_first` load-balancing policy to decide which one of them to use.
+However, in order to leave open the possibility of adding support for
+priority and weight in the future, we recommend that these fields be set
+to 0.  That way, if we do add support for these fields in the future,
+existing records will not break.
+
+### Example
+
+For example, let's say that we have the following DNS zone file:
+
+```
+$ORIGIN example.com.
+; grpclb for server.example.com goes to lb.example.com:1234
+_grpclb._tcp.server IN SRV 0 0 1234 lb
+; lb.example.com has 3 IP addresses
+lb                  IN A 10.0.0.1
+                    IN A 10.0.0.2
+                    IN A 10.0.0.3
+```
+
+With this data, a gRPC client will resolve the name `server.example.com`
+to the following addresses:
+
+```
+address=10.0.0.1:1234, is_balancer=true, balancer_name=lb.example.com
+address=10.0.0.2:1234, is_balancer=true, balancer_name=lb.example.com
+address=10.0.0.3:1234, is_balancer=true, balancer_name=lb.example.com
+```
+
+### Future Work: Providing Both Server and Balancer Results
+
+For redundancy, it may be desirable to return both server and balancer
+addresses for the same server name.  In principle, this will allow the
+client to fall back to directly contacting the servers if the load
+balancers are unreachable.  However, that fallback functionality is not
+yet implemented, so it will be the subject of future work.
+
+However, it is still possible for service owners to set up their DNS
+zone files to publish both types of addresses, so that they are prepared
+for an eventual future when this fallback functionality has been
+implemented.  For example:
+
+```
+$ORIGIN example.com.
+server              IN A 10.0.0.11
+                    IN A 10.0.0.12
+; grpclb for server.example.com goes to lb.example.com:1234
+_grpclb._tcp.server IN SRV 0 0 1234 lb
+; lb.example.com has 3 IP addresses
+lb                  IN A 10.0.0.1
+                    IN A 10.0.0.2
+                    IN A 10.0.0.3
+```
+
+For now, if both address records and SRV records are present for the
+same server name, the gRPC client will ignore the address records and
+return only the SRV records -- in other words, the result for a lookup
+of `server.example.com` will be exactly the same in this case as it
+would be in the previous example.
+
+In the future, when we do implement support for this kind of fallback,
+this lookup will result in the following addresses:
+
+```
+address=10.0.0.11:443, is_balancer=false, balancer_name=<unset>
+address=10.0.0.12:443, is_balancer=false, balancer_name=<unset>
+address=10.0.0.1:1234, is_balancer=true, balancer_name=lb.example.com
+address=10.0.0.2:1234, is_balancer=true, balancer_name=lb.example.com
+address=10.0.0.3:1234, is_balancer=true, balancer_name=lb.example.com
+```
+
+Note that port 443 is the default if not specified by the server name
+passed to the client library by the application.  If the server name
+passed in by the application does specify a port, that would be used for
+the resulting server addresses, but it would not affect the port used
+for the balancer addresses.
+
+## Rationale
+
+We considered one alternative, which was adding additional fields to a
+TXT record instead of using an SRV record.  However, the SRV record
+seems to be a much better fit for this purpose.
+
+## Implementation
+
+### C-core
+
+In C-core, this implementation will rely on use of the c-ares DNS
+library, which is being added in
+[grpc/grpc#7771](https://github.com/grpc/grpc/pull/7771).
+
+Specifically, we will change the c-ares resolver implementation to
+automatically look up the grpclb SRV records for the specified name.  If
+found, it will then look up the name(s) that the SRV records point to
+and return those as balancer addresses.
+
+Note that, due to platform support issues, we will initially *not*
+support the c-ares resolver under Windows or for Node.  Alternatives
+will need to be found for these environments.
+
+### Java
+
+Java will depend on JNDI, Netty DNS, dnsjava, or a another DNS library
+to do SRV record resolution. The existing name resolver, `DnsNameResolver`,
+will be modified to resolve the additional records and include them in
+the Attributes presented to the load balancer.
+
+### Go
+
+TODO(roth): Talk to Go folks about content for this section.
+
+## Open issues (if applicable)
+
+N/A