Go-ipfs: /api/v0/dns/ returns HTTP 500 instead of 404 when dnslink is not found

[lidel]

This is a cosmetic issue. :bouquet:

I implemented PoC for https://github.com/lidel/ipfs-firefox-addon/issues/44 and noticed that lookups for FQDNs without dnslink produce HTTP 500:

After ipfs log level namesys debug I see:

21:31:01.708  INFO    namesys: DNSResolver resolving upt.graphiq.com dns.go:54
21:31:01.749 WARNI    namesys: Could not resolve upt.graphiq.com base.go:21
21:31:03.627  INFO    namesys: DNSResolver resolving gscounters.us1.gigya.com dns.go:54
21:31:03.668 WARNI    namesys: Could not resolve gscounters.us1.gigya.com base.go:21
21:31:05.714  INFO    namesys: DNSResolver resolving adx.adnxs.com dns.go:54
21:31:05.761 WARNI    namesys: Could not resolve adx.adnxs.com base.go:21
21:31:13.095  INFO    namesys: DNSResolver resolving perpro17-ew1b.ml314.com dns.go:54
21:31:13.136 WARNI    namesys: Could not resolve perpro17-ew1b.ml314.com base.go:21

It is easy to reproduce via curl:

curl -vq http://localhost:5001/api/v0/dns/1.gravatar.com                                         ~
*   Trying ::1...
* Connected to localhost (::1) port 5001 (#0)
> GET /api/v0/dns/1.gravatar.com HTTP/1.1
> Host: localhost:5001
> User-Agent: curl/7.45.0
> Accept: */*
> 
< HTTP/1.1 500 Internal Server Error
< Access-Control-Allow-Headers: X-Stream-Output, X-Chunked-Output
< Access-Control-Expose-Headers: X-Stream-Output, X-Chunked-Output
< Content-Type: application/json
< Trailer: X-Stream-Error
< Transfer-Encoding: chunked
< Date: Tue, 02 Feb 2016 21:57:16 GMT
< Transfer-Encoding: chunked
< 
{"Message":"lookup 1.gravatar.com on 8.8.8.8:53: no such host","Code":0}

My problem: broken semantics. There was no Internal Server Error. Everything worked as expected. :ok_hand:

DNS Lookup that does not find dnslink should return a code in lower range, probably the best one being HTTP 404 (Not Found) or 400 (Bad Request).

A similar issue: https://github.com/ipfs/go-ipfs/issues/1047

[whyrusleeping]

@lidel is this still an issue?

[lidel]

Yes, I use v0.4.6 and still get HTTP/1.1 500 Internal Server Error for curl example above

[whyrusleeping]

@lidel Thanks! I'll prioritize getting this fixed

[whyrusleeping]

@lgierth do you think you could handle fixing this one?

[ghost]

404 will likely not work out. This API is full craze RPC, and 404 simply means "command not found". I gave it a try in #3777 and the result is that the CLI reports "command not found", and it's really tricky to make it work.

You're right that 500 is too vague to make sense of, but we'll likely have to convey additional info not via HTTP statuses, but via the Code field of the response.