[arabic-vip] Variants implications on registry operations and DNSSEC

Mon Jul 18 06:04:11 UTC 2011

Thank you Raed, I find your writing to be very comprehensive, and I have nothing to add at this stage.

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From: arabic-vip-bounces at icann.org [mailto:arabic-vip-bounces at icann.org] On Behalf Of Raed Al-Fayez
Sent: Sunday, July 17, 2011 10:44 AM
To: arabic-vip at icann.org
Subject: [arabic-vip] Variants implications on registry operations and DNSSEC

Dear All,

This is a Preliminary list for issues that a registry should consider (from operational point of view) when dealing with variants:

1.       Whois: The registry might need to change how the whois information are handled and displayed. For example if someone searches for a string in the whois tool (web/cmd) and that string represents a variant for an already registered domain name then the registry might indicates the status of that variant (e.g. active or inactive) along with the whois information for the domain name (which is the base for that variant).

Here are some questions (about this issue) that each registry should consider:

a.       Should the whois information be the same for a domain name and it's variant or the whois information may vary?

b.      Should the registry return the whois information for a domain name when someone tries to query one of its variants or only return a notice that indicates there are not whois information for the variant but there is one for the domain?

c.       Should the registry list the status of the variant (active: enables by the user or inactive: only blocked but not used)?

d.      Should the registry control the language which is used for the whois information (e.g. if the domain/variant is in Urdu then the whois info should be in Urdu)?

e.      …etc.

2.       Registration Processes: The registry should change the registration process when someone tries to register a string as a domain name. For example if someone wants to register a string (as a domain) then a DB lookup should be done across all  registered domain names and all of their possible variants in order to deny registering a variant for someone else.

Here are some questions (about this issue) that each registry should consider:

a.       Should the registry store all possible variants in a table and use it for registration lookup or use an optimized mechanism to make it simpler and faster (e.g. generating a unified/base string for each domain and use it for lookups – master key algorithm).

b.      Is it possible for the same set of variants to be registered/used by different registrants?

c.       Should the registry list all possible variants for a domain name at the end of the registration process or separate that from the registration process?

d.      Can variants be activated/bundled automatically or the registrant need to ask for them?

e.      Should the registry ask the registrant which language is used for writing the domain name?

f.        ..etc

3.        Delegation: The registry should decide how to handle the variants and how to activated/bundled them.

Here are some questions (about this issue) that each registry should consider:

a.       How to delegate the variants for a given domain name from technical point of view (use NS, DNAME, CNAME ..etc)?

b.      Should name servers be exactly the same for a given domain name and its variants or could name servers be different?

c.        …etc

4.       Reserved List: The registry may need to block reserved names variants.

Here are some questions (about this issue) that each registry should consider:

a.       If someone get an exception to register a name from the reserved list, should he also get its variants?

b.      Should the registry add all variants or some of them to the reserve list?

c.       …etc

5.       Activating/Disabling variants: The registry should allow registrant to activate (delegate) one or more variant of the registered domain name.

Here are some questions (about this issue) that each registry should consider:

a.       Is there a limitation to the number of variants that can be activated for a given domain name?

b.      Can a variant be composed of code-points within one language table or it can be mixed of code-points across the script?

c.       Should the registry ask the registrant which language is used for each variant?

d.      Once a variant is activated can it be disabled (deactivated)?

e.      ..etc

6.       EPP: The registry may need to add some extensions to the EPP in order to support variants and activated/bundled them.

Here are some questions (about this issue) that each registry should consider:

a.       What are the needed extensions, XML and DB fields (from EPP point of view)?

b.      What are the needed variant's status for the domain life cycle (from EPP point of view)?

c.       ...etc

7.        DNSSEC: The registry may need to think more about key management specially when they adopt variants.

Here are some questions (about this issue) that each registry should consider:

a.       Are the variants going to share the same signing-key or each variant will have its own signing-key?

b.      What will happen if the signing-key is expired for a domain name or one of its variants?

c.       When transferring a domain what will happen for the domain & variants signing-key(s)?

d.      ...etc

8.       Defining Language table/variant table: The registry should decide what are the supported languages along with defining language table & variants table for each support language.

Here are some questions (about this issue) that each registry should consider:

a.       What are the supported languages in the registry's TLD?

b.      Should the registry define a language table and a variant table for each supported language.

c.       Should variants be defined up to the positioning level [Begging, Middle, End, Isolated] (e.g. HEH = KNOTTED HEH : in Begging or Middle or Isolated shapes/positions)  of code-point or one-to-one mapping (e.g. HEH = KNOTTED HEH)?

d.      ..etc

9.       Deleting & transferring domain name: The registry should decide what to do with variants if the domain name is deleted or transferred.

Here are some questions (about this issue) that each registry should consider:

a.       When transferring or deleting a domain what will happen with its variants?

b.      When a domain name expires what will happen to its variants?

c.       ..etc

10.   Fees: The registry should decide the pricing schema for variants

Here are some questions (about this issue) that each registry should consider:

a.       Is there a fee for activating/bundling variants?

b.      Is there a fee for disabling a variant?

c.       ...etc

11.   TLD variants: If the registry gets a variant(s) for their TLD label then zone generation process might be affected.

Here are some questions (about this issue) that each registry should consider:

a.       Build zone file for each TLD variant or the variant(s) will share the same TLD label zone file?

b.      Should each variant's zone file contains resource records for the same language( an Urdu variant TLD should only contains Urdu domains) or not?

c.       Is it possible for the registry to have different set of NS registered with IANA? Or will they share the same TLD label info?

d.      ...etc

This is just a start point and I hope that everyone contributes to it.

With best regards,

Raed I. Al-Fayez
------------------------------------------
Senior IT Projects Specialist, M.Sc, PMP
Saudi Network Information Center (SaudiNIC)
Communication and Information Technology Commission (CITC)
Tel: + 966-1-2639235   - Fax: + 966-1-2639393
http://www.nic.net.sa<http://www.nic.net.sa/>

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