Internet Draft R. Rader Document: draft-ietf-provreg-dn-defn-00 Tucows Inc. Category: Informational February, 2001 Domain Name and Related Definitions Status of this Memo This document is an Internet-Draft and is in full conformance with all provisions of Section 10 of RFC 2026 [1]. Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), its areas, and its working groups. Note that other groups may also distribute working documents as Internet- Drafts. Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any time. It is inappropriate to use Internet- Drafts as reference material or to cite them other than as "work in progress." The list of current Internet-Drafts can be accessed at http://www.ietf.org/ietf/1id-abstracts.txt The list of Internet-Draft Shadow Directories can be accessed at http://www.ietf.org/shadow.html. 1. Abstract Efforts are currently being undertaken to define and formalize registry/registrar communications protocols in light of the current and evolving scope and utility of DNS, domain name registries and related entities. In order for this work to be truly effective and broadly applicable, it is important that accepted definitions act as the foundation. This document is an attempt to create a starting point for the requisite dialogue that will ultimately foster the determination and acceptance of these new protocols. This document obsoletes . 2. Conventions used in this document The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT", "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in RFC 2119 [3]. 3. Definitions Contact: Contacts are individuals or entities associated with domain name records. Typically, third parties with specific inquiries or concerns will use contact records to determine who should act upon Rader Informational - July, 2001 1 Domain Name & Related Def'n February, 2001 specific issues related to a domain name record. There are typically three of these contact types associated with a domain name record, the Administrative contact, the Billing contact and the Technical contact. Contact, Administrative: The administrative contact is an individual, role or organization authorized to interact with the registry or registrar on behalf of the Domain Holder. The administrative contact should be able to answer non-technical questions about the domain name's registration and the SLD Holder. In all cases, the Administrative Contact is viewed as the authoritative point of contact for the domain name, second only to the Registrant. Contact, Billing: The billing contact is the individual, role or organization designated to receive the invoice for domain name registration and re-registration fees. Contact, Technical: The technical contact is the individual, role or organization who is responsible for the technical operations of the delegated zone. This contact likely maintains the domain name server(s) for the domain. The technical contact should be able to answer technical questions about the domain name, the delegated zone and work with technically oriented people in other zones to solve technical problems that affect the domain name and/or zone. Domain Holder: The individual or organization that registers a specific domain name. This individual or organization holds the right to use that specific domain name for a specified period of time, provided certain conditions are met and the registration fees are paid. This person or organization is the "legal entity" bound by the terms of the relevant service agreement with the registry operator for the TLD in question. Exclusive Registration System: A domain name registration system in which registry services are limited to a single registrar. Exclusive Registration Systems may be either loosely coupled (in which case the separation between Registry and Registrar systems is readily evident), or tightly coupled (in which case the separation between registry and registrar systems is obscure). IP Address: Either or both IPv4 or IPv6 address ICANN: Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. A non- profit organization founded to assume responsibility for IP address space assignment, protocol parameter assignment, domain name system management and root server system management. InterNIC: The InterNIC, a registered service mark of the U.S. Department of Commerce, is a concept for an integrated network information center that was developed by several companies, including Network Solutions, in cooperation with the U.S. Rader Informational - Expires July, 2001 2 Domain Name & Related Def'n February, 2001 Government. Until recently, the term InterNIC is being used in conjunction with a neutral, stand alone web page (located at http://www.internic.net) that has been established to provide the public with information regarding Internet domain name registration. ICANN has recently undertaken an agreement with the United States Department of Commerce to undertake operation of the effort. The InterNIC was originally created by NSF to provide specific Internet services; directory & database services (by AT&T), registration services (by Network Solutions) and information services (by General Atomics/CERFnet). [4] Namespace: All combinations of Domain Names and Top Level Domains, registered and otherwise, existing below a Root System. There is only one namespace associated with each Root System. Similar Namespace may exist in a multiple Root Systems. (ie - it is possible that foo.com can exist in both the ICANN/DOC Namespace and the Open Root Server Coalition Namespace.) NIC: Network Information Center. NIC Handle: A NIC Handle is an identifier in use by some registrars and registries that is assigned to various records in the domain name database. Globally, they do not have a common format or application. Further, they are not globally unique. Object: A generic term used to describe entities that are created, updated, deleted, and otherwise managed by a generic registry- registrar protocol. Registrant: See Domain Holder Registrar: A person or entity that, via contract with Domain Holders and a Registry, provides front-end domain name registration services to registrants, providing a public interface to registry services. Registrar, Accredited: A Registrar that has been certified as meeting certain minimal criteria to act as a Registrar for a specific TLD. This term is almost solely used when referring to Registrars that have been certified by ICANN. Registrar, Sponsoring: The Registrar responsible for the submission of the domain name to the Registry. Registry: A Registry is the person(s) or entity(ies) responsible for providing registry services. Registry services include customer database administration, zone file publication, DNS operation, marketing and policy determination in accordance with the general principles outlined in RFC 1591 [5]. A Registry may outsource some, all, or none of these services. Registry, Thick: A registry in which all of the information associated with registered entities, including both technical Rader Informational - Expires July, 2001 3 Domain Name & Related Def'n February, 2001 information (information needed to produce zone files) and social information (information needed to implement operational, business, or legal practices), is stored within the registry repository. Registry, Thin: A registry in which some element of the social information associated with registered entities is distributed between a shared registry and the registrars served by the registry. Registry Operator: Usually synonymous with the term Registry, however a Registry Operator may also be an organization or individual acting operating the Registry under an outsourced technical services management contract. Root System: The aggregate of all DNS activities, Top Level Domains and Domain Names existing in any given Namespace. Currently, the most popular Root System is operated by the United States Department of Commerce and ICANN. Other competitive Root Systems include those run by the Open Root Server Confederation, Name.space and others. SLD: An "SLD" is a second-level domain of the DNS SLD, Functional: A reasonable equivalent to an SLD in a namespace where second level domains are not permitted for policy reasons. An example of a Functional SLD would be foo.com.au. While .com is the actual SLD, .au policy does not permit the widespread registration of second level domains, thereby creating a proliferation of Functional SLDs (in this case .foo) in the .au namespace. SLD Holder: See "Domain Holder" SLD Sponsor: See "Registrar, Sponsoring". Shared Registration System: A domain name registration system in which registry services are shared among multiple independent registrars. Shared Registration Systems require a loose coupling between registrars and a registry. Thick Registry: See "Registry, Thick". Thin Registry: See "Registry, Thin". TLD: Top Level Domain. A generic term used to describe both gTLDs and ccTLDs that exist under the top-level root of the domain name hierarchy. Whois: a TCP transaction based query/response server, that providing netwide directory service to network users. The Whois Protocol was originally defined in RFC 954. The initial domain name related application layer implementations were centralized systems run by SRC-NIC and then later InterNIC/Network Solutions. The SRI-NIC and InterNIC implementations are more formally referred to as "NICNAME/Whois" services. Whois is not purely a domain name or IP Rader Informational - Expires July, 2001 4 Domain Name & Related Def'n February, 2001 address directory service, but has been deployed for a wide variety of uses, both public and private. Other variants of this service include RWhois and the newer Verisign Referral LDAP Whois service. Whois can refer to the protocol defined in RFC 954 or the generic application service described above. Whois, Bulk: A data retrieval mechanism required by ICANN that specifies that all ICANN accredited Registrars must make their Whois dataset available as a single machine readable file. Put another way, Bulk Whois is the entire Registrar Whois dataset available for download via FTP, HTTP or other mechanism. Whois, Command-line: A Whois query executed from the command line of an operating system such as Linux or MS-DOS. Whois Record: The information or payload returned to the client as a result of a Whois query. Whois, Referral: RWhois (Referral Whois) extends and enhances the Whois concept in a hierarchical and scaleable fashion. In accordance with this, RWhois focuses primarily on the distribution of "network objects", or the data representing Internet resources or people, and uses the inherently hierarchical nature of these network objects (domain names, Internet Protocol (IP) networks, email addresses) to more accurately discover the requested information. [6] Whois, Registrar: Whois services made available by specific registrars for the domain names that they sponsor at the Registry. Whois, Registry: Whois services made available by specific registries for the domain names that they are authoritative for. Registry Whois often do not provide the comprehensive contact information that Registrar Whois services do, but they usually contain contact information for the Sponsoring Registrar. Note that the payload provided to the client by the Registry is not standardized between Registries and may vary based on the model employed by the Registry. Whois, Web based: A World Wide Web interface to Registrar or Registry Whois services. 4. Security Considerations This memo provides definitions for administrative terms related to DNS and does not raise or address security issues. 5. References [1] Bradner, S., "The Internet Standards Process -- Revision 3", BCP 9, RFC 2026, October 1996. Rader Informational - Expires July, 2001 5 Domain Name & Related Def'n February, 2001 [2] Harrenstein, Stahl & Feinler, "NICName/Whois", RFC 954, October 1985. [3] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997 [4] Kristula, D., "History of the Internet", http://davesite.com/webstation/net-history.shtml, 1996. [5] Postel, J., "Domain Name System Structure and Delegation", RFC 1591, March, 1994. [6] Williamson, Kosters, Blacka, Singh & Zeilstra, "Referral Whois (Rwhois) Protocol V1.5", RFC 2167, June 1997. 6. Acknowledgments This document is the result of input and motivation from a wide variety of individuals and entities. Rick Wesson, Scott Allan and Tim Jung provided the primary motivators with ICANN, IANA and Network Solutions providing the history and context. Additionally, the various terms and conditions, operating contracts and frequently asked questions documents produced by various Registries and Registrars were instrumental in the production of this document. Where appropriate, these contributions will be specifically acknowledged in the References portion of future iterations of this draft. Other portions of this document have assumed definitions from " Generic Registry-Registrar Protocol Requirements" (draft-hollenbeck- grrp-reqs-06.txt, January, 2001), by Scott Hollenbeck, at the author's request. 7. Author's Address Ross Wm. Rader Tucows Inc. 96 Mowat Avenue Toronto, Ontario M9C 3M1 t. 416.538.5492 f. 416.531.2516 e. ross@tucows.com Rader Informational - Expires July, 2001 6 Domain Name & Related Def'n February, 2001 Full Copyright Statement "Copyright (C) The Internet Society 2001. All Rights Reserved. This document and translations of it may be copied and furnished to others, and derivative works that comment on or otherwise explain it or assist in its implmentation may be prepared, copied, published and distributed, in whole or in part, without restriction of any kind, provided that the above copyright notice and this paragraph are included on all such copies and derivative works. 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