[SubPro-IRT] Review of RST Test Specifications

[Next Round Policy Implementation]

Dear IRT members,

An IRT meeting focused specifically on the Registry System Testing (RST) will be held on 13 February 2024 at 14:00-15:00 UTC. For more information, please refer to the meeting page:


  *   https://community.icann.org/x/boPxDg

As you may be aware, as part of our Next Round activities, ICANN org has been working on a new Registry System Testing (RST) service (RST v2.0), which includes a new set of test specifications and a RESTful API that will fully automate the process of testing, for both the RSP Evaluation Program, as well as Pre-Delegation Testing and post-delegation RST. Details of the new test specifications and the API were provided during ICANN78 in Hamburg[1] and the IRT RST Sub-Track Meeting #1 on 14 December 2023[2].

Since those meetings, we have made significant progress on developing the test specifications and the API specification, both of which have been published on GitHub:


  *   https://icann.github.io/rst-test-specs/rst-test-specs.html
  *   https://icann.github.io/rst-api-spec/rst-api-spec.html

As we are approaching the anticipated Public Comment period (planned to begin at the end of March) for the RST v2.0 project, we are inviting members of the IRT and the TLD technical community to provide their feedback on the test and API specifications.

The RST test specifications are broken down into ten separate test plans[3], each covering a particular scenario. For RSP evaluation, the relevant plans are the Main RSP Evaluation Test, IDN Test (RSP Evaluation), DNS RSP Evaluation Test, DNSSEC RSP Evaluation Test, and SRS Gateway RSP Evaluation Test.

Each test plan uses one or more test suites[4], each of which covers a different registry service, such as EPP, RDAP, DNS, DNSSEC, Data Escrow, etc.

Each test suite uses one or more test cases that test a specific component of that registry service.

Each test case is tagged with a “Maturity” level, which is one of “ALPHA”, “BETA” or “GAMMA”. As of writing, most test cases are at BETA level or higher: while we welcome all feedback, we encourage you to avoid spending too much time reviewing the ALPHA-level cases, as these are the ones most likely to change in the future.

To provide stability and predictability, we have moved to a weekly release process, where the test specifications are only updated once per week (on a Wednesday). Each release will be accompanied by a Change Log, which can be found:


  *   https://icann.github.io/rst-test-specs/rst-test-specs.html#change-log

If you are interested in seeing the most up to date version of the specifications, they are available in the “dev” branches of the GitHub repositories:


  *   https://github.com/icann/rst-test-specs/tree/dev
  *   https://github.com/icann/rst-api-spec/tree/dev

Submitting Feedback

We request to use GitHub to submit feedback. Each of the above repositories has its own issue tracker that can be used to submit feedback. You will need a GitHub account in order to submit issues.

Current system

For your reference, you may find the test specifications of the current RST system in the following link: https://www.icann.org/resources/registry-system-testing

[1] https://community.icann.org/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=264372276
[2] https://community.icann.org/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=282951922
[3] https://icann.github.io/rst-test-specs/rst-test-specs.html#test-plans
[4] https://icann.github.io/rst-test-specs/rst-test-specs.html#test-suites

Best regards,
Gustavo, Gavin, and Elisa
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