Skip to main content

The ALT Special Use Top Level Domain
draft-ietf-dnsop-alt-tld-03

The information below is for an old version of the document.
Document Type
This is an older version of an Internet-Draft that was ultimately published as RFC 9476.
Authors Warren "Ace" Kumari , Andrew Sullivan
Last updated 2015-09-30
Replaces draft-wkumari-dnsop-alt-tld
RFC stream Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF)
Formats
Reviews
Additional resources Mailing list discussion
Stream WG state Parked WG Document
Document shepherd (None)
IESG IESG state Became RFC 9476 (Proposed Standard)
Consensus boilerplate Unknown
Telechat date (None)
Responsible AD (None)
Send notices to (None)
draft-ietf-dnsop-alt-tld-03
dnsop                                                          W. Kumari
Internet-Draft                                                    Google
Intended status: Informational                               A. Sullivan
Expires: April 2, 2016                                               Dyn
                                                      September 30, 2015

                  The ALT Special Use Top Level Domain
                      draft-ietf-dnsop-alt-tld-03

Abstract

   This document reserves a string (ALT) to be used as a TLD label in
   non-DNS contexts or for names that have no meaning in a global
   context.  It also provides advice and guidance to developers
   developing alternate namespaces.

   [ Ed note: This document lives in GitHub at:
   https://github.com/wkumari/draft-wkumari-dnsop-alt-tld . Issues and
   pull requests happily accepted. ]

Status of This Memo

   This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the
   provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.

   Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering
   Task Force (IETF).  Note that other groups may also distribute
   working documents as Internet-Drafts.  The list of current Internet-
   Drafts is at http://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/current/.

   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."

   This Internet-Draft will expire on April 2, 2016.

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (c) 2015 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
   document authors.  All rights reserved.

   This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
   Provisions Relating to IETF Documents
   (http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of
   publication of this document.  Please review these documents
   carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect

Kumari & Sullivan         Expires April 2, 2016                 [Page 1]
Internet-Draft               Reserve ALT TLD              September 2015

   to this document.  Code Components extracted from this document must
   include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of
   the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as
   described in the Simplified BSD License.

Table of Contents

   1.  Introduction  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   2
     1.1.  Requirements notation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   2
     1.2.  Terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   2
   2.  Background  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
   3.  The ALT namespace . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
     3.1.  Choice of the ALT Name  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
   4.  IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   6
     4.1.  Domain Name Reservation Considerations  . . . . . . . . .   6
   5.  Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7
   6.  Acknowledgements  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7
   7.  Normative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   8
   Appendix A.  Changes / Author Notes.  . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   8
   Authors' Addresses  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  10

1.  Introduction

   Many protocols and systems need to name entities.  Names that look
   like DNS names (a series of labels separated with dots) have become
   common, even in systems that are not part of the global DNS
   administered by IANA.

   This document provides a solution that may be more appropriate than
   [RFC6761] in many cases.

   This document reserves the label "ALT" (short for "Alternate") as a
   Special Use Domain ([RFC6761]).  This label is intended to be used as
   the final label to signify that the name is not rooted in the DNS,
   and that normal registration and lookup rules do not apply.

1.1.  Requirements notation

   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 [RFC2119].

1.2.  Terminology

   This document assumes familiarity with DNS terms and concepts.
   Please see [RFC1034] for background and concepts, and
   [I-D.ietf-dnsop-dns-terminology] for terminology.

Kumari & Sullivan         Expires April 2, 2016                 [Page 2]
Internet-Draft               Reserve ALT TLD              September 2015

   o  DNS name: Domain names that are intended to be used with DNS
      resolution, either in the global DNS or in some other context

   o  DNS context: The namespace anchored at the globally-unique DNS
      root.  This is the namespace or context that "normal" DNS uses.

   o  non-DNS context: Any other (alternate) namespace.

   o  pseudo-TLD: A label that appears in a fully-qualified domain name
      in the position of a TLD, but which is not registered in the
      global DNS.

   o  TLD: The last visible label in either a fully-qualified domain
      name or a name that is qualified relative to the root.  See the
      discussion in Section 2.

2.  Background

   The DNS data model is based on a tree structure, and has a single
   root.  Conventionally, a name immediately beneath the root is called
   a "Top Level Domain" or "TLD".  TLDs usually delegate portions of
   their namespace to others, who may then delegate further.  The
   hierarchical, distributed and caching nature of the DNS has made it
   the primary resolution system on the Internet.

   Domain names are terminated by a zero-length label, so the root label
   is normally invisible.  Truly fully-qualified names indicate the root
   label explicitly, thus: "an.example.tld.".  Most of the time, names
   are written implicitly relative to the root, thus: "an.example.tld".
   In both of these cases, the TLD is the last label that is visible in
   presentation format -- in this example, the string "tld".  (This
   little bit of pedantry is here because, in different contexts, people
   can use the term "fully-qualified domain name" to refer to either of
   these uses.)  It is worth noting that the root label is present in
   the on-wire format of fully-qualified domain names, even if not
   displayed in the presentation form.

   The success of the DNS makes it a natural starting point for systems
   that need to name entities in a non-DNS context, or that have no
   unique meaning in a global context.  These name resolutions,
   therefore, occur in a namespace distinct from the DNS.

   In many cases, these systems build a DNS-style tree parallel to, but
   separate from, the global DNS.  They often use a pseudo-TLD to cause
   resolution in the alternate namespace, using browser plugins, shims
   in the name resolution process, or simply applications that perform
   special handling of this particular alternate namespace.

Kumari & Sullivan         Expires April 2, 2016                 [Page 3]
Internet-Draft               Reserve ALT TLD              September 2015

   In many cases, the creators of these alternate namespaces have chosen
   a convenient or descriptive string and started using it.  These new
   strings are "alternate" strings and are not registered anywhere or
   part of the DNS.  However they appear to users and to some
   applications to be TLDs.  Issues may arise if they are looked up in
   the DNS.  These include:

   o  User confusion: If someone emails a link of the form
      foo.bar.pseudo-TLD to someone who does not have the necessary
      software to resolve names in the pseudo-TLD namespace, the name
      will not resolve and the user may become confused.

   o  Excess traffic hitting the DNS root: Lookups leak out of the
      pseudo-TLD namespace and end up hitting the DNS root nameservers.

   o  Collisions: If the pseudo-TLD is eventually delegated from the
      root zone, the lookup behavior will change in a non-deterministic
      fashion.

   o  Lack of success for the user's original goal.

   An alternate name resolution system might be specifically designed to
   provide confidentiality of the looked up name, and to provide a
   distributed and censorship-resistant namespace.  This goal would
   necessarily be defeated if the queries leak into the DNS, because the
   attempt to look up the name would be visible at least to the
   operators of root name servers and to any entity viewing the DNS
   lookups going to the root nameservers.

3.  The ALT namespace

   In order to avoid the above issues, we reserve the ALT label.  Unless
   the name desired is globally unique, has meaning on the global
   context and is delegated in the DNS, it should be considered an
   alternate namespace, and follow the ALT label scheme outlined below.
   The ALT label MAY be used in any domain name as a pseudo-TLD to
   signify that this is an alternate (non-DNS) namespace.

   Alternate namespaces should differentiate themselves from other
   alternate namespaces by choosing a name and using it in the label
   position just before the pseudo-TLD (ALT).  For example, a group
   wishing to create a namespace for Friends Of Olaf might choose the
   string "foo" and use any set of labels under foo.alt.

   As they are in an alternate namespace, they have no significance in
   the regular DNS context and so should not be looked up in the DNS
   context.  Some of these requests will inevitably leak into the DNS
   context (for example, because clicks on a link in a browser that does

Kumari & Sullivan         Expires April 2, 2016                 [Page 4]
Internet-Draft               Reserve ALT TLD              September 2015

   not have a extension installed that implements the alternate
   namespace resolution), and so the ALT TLD has been added to the
   "Locally Served DNS Zones" ( [RFC6303]) registry to limit how far
   these flow.

   Groups wishing to create new alternate namespaces SHOULD create their
   alternate namespace under a label that names their namespace, and
   under the ALT label.  They SHOULD choose a label that they expect to
   be unique and, ideally, descriptive.  There is no IANA controlled
   registry for names under the ALT TLD - it is an unmanaged namespace,
   and developers are responsible for dealing with any collisions that
   may occur under .alt.  Informal lists of namespaces under .alt may
   appear to assist the developer community.

   [Editor note (to be removed before publication): There was
   significant discussion on an IANA registry for the ALT namespace -
   please consult the lists for full thread, but the consensus seems to
   be that it would be better for the IETF / IANA to not administer a
   registry for this.  It is expected one or more unofficial lists will
   be created where people can list the strings that they are using. ]

   Currently deployed projects and protocols that are using pseudo-TLDs
   may decide to move under the ALT TLD, but this is not a requirement.
   Rather, the ALT TLD is being reserved so that current and future
   projects of a similar nature have a designated place to create
   alternate resolution namespaces that will not conflict with the
   regular DNS context.

3.1.  Choice of the ALT Name

   A number of names other than "ALT" were considered and discarded.  In
   order for this technique to be effective the names need to continue
   to follow both the DNS format and conventions (a prime consideration
   for alternate name formats is that they can be entered in places that
   normally take DNS context names); this rules out using suffixes that
   do not follow the usual letter, digit, and hyphen label convention.

   Another proposal was that the ALT TLD instead be a reservation under
   .arpa.  This was considered, but rejected for several reasons,
   including:

   1.  We wished this to make it clear that this is not in the DNS
       context, and .arpa clearly is.

   2.  The use of the string .alt is intended to evoke the alt.*
       hierarchy in Usenet.

   3.  We wanted the string to be short and easily used.

Kumari & Sullivan         Expires April 2, 2016                 [Page 5]
Internet-Draft               Reserve ALT TLD              September 2015

   4.  A name underneath .arpa would consume at least five additional
       octets of the total 255 octets available in domain names, which
       could put pressure on applications that need long machine-
       generated names.

   5.  We are suggesting that the string "ALT" get special treatment in
       resolvers, and shim software.  We are concerned that using
       subdomains of an existing TLD (like .arpa) might end up with bad
       implementations misconfiguring / overriding the TLD itself and
       breaking .arpa.

   There is a concern that if there were placed under .arpa,
   inexperienced nameserver operators may inadvertently cover .arpa.  A
   more significant concern is that the scope of the issue if the query
   does leak, and the fact that this would then make the root of the
   alternate naming namespace a third level domain, and not a second
   one.  A project may be willing to have a name of the form
   example.alt, but example.alt.arpa may be not look as good.

4.  IANA Considerations

   The IANA is requested to add the ALT string to the "Special-Use
   Domain Name" registry ([RFC6761], and reference this document.  In
   addition, the "Locally Served DNS Zones" ([RFC6303]) registry should
   be updated to reference this document.

4.1.  Domain Name Reservation Considerations

   This section is to satisfy the requirement in Section 5 of RFC6761.

   The domain "alt.", and any names falling within ".alt.", are special
   in the following ways:

   1.  Human users are expected to know that strings that end in .alt
       behave differently to normal DNS names.  Users are expected to
       have applications running on their machines that intercept
       strings of the form <namespace>.alt and perform special handing
       of them.  If the user tries to resolve a name of the form
       <namespace>.alt without the <namespace> plugin installed, the
       request will leak into the DNS, and receive a negative response.

   2.  Writers of application software that implement a non-DNS
       namespace are expected to intercept names of the form
       <namespace>.alt and perform application specific handing with
       them.  Other applications are not intended to perform any special
       handing.

Kumari & Sullivan         Expires April 2, 2016                 [Page 6]
Internet-Draft               Reserve ALT TLD              September 2015

   3.  In general, writers of name resolution APIs and libraries do not
       need to perform special handing of these names.  If developers of
       other namespaces implement their namespace through a "shim" or
       library, they will need to intercept and perform their own
       handling.

   4.  Caching DNS servers SHOULD recognize these names as special and
       SHOULD NOT, by default, attempt to look up NS records for them,
       or otherwise query authoritative DNS servers in an attempt to
       resolve these names.  Instead, caching DNS servers SHOULD
       generate immediate negative responses for all such queries.

   5.  Authoritative DNS servers SHOULD recognize these names as special
       and SHOULD, by default, generate immediate negative responses for
       all such queries, unless explicitly configured by the
       administrator to give positive answers for private-address
       reverse-mapping names.

   6.  DNS server operators SHOULD be aware that queries for names
       ending in .alt are not DNS names, and were leaked into the DNS
       context (for example, by a missing browser plugin).  This
       information may be useful for support or debugging purposes.

   7.  DNS Registries/Registrars MUST NOT grant requests to register
       "alt" names in the normal way to any person or entity.  These
       "alt" names are defined by protocol specification to be
       nonexistent, and they fall outside the set of names available for
       allocation by registries/registrars.

5.  Security Considerations

   One of the motivations for the creation of the alt pseudo-TLD is that
   unmanaged labels in the managed root name space are subject to
   unexpected takeover if the manager of the root name space decides to
   delegate the unmanaged label.

   The unmanaged and "registration not required" nature of labels
   beneath .alt provides the opportunity for an attacker to re-use the
   chosen label and thereby possibly compromise applications dependent
   on the special host name.

6.  Acknowledgements

   We would also like to thank Joe Abley, Mark Andrews, Marc Blanchet,
   John Bond, Stephane Bortzmeyer, David Cake, David Conrad, Patrik
   Faltstrom, Olafur Gudmundsson, Paul Hoffman, Joel Jaeggli, Ted Lemon,
   Edward Lewis, George Michaelson, Ed Pascoe, Arturo Servin, and Paul
   Vixie for feedback.

Kumari & Sullivan         Expires April 2, 2016                 [Page 7]
Internet-Draft               Reserve ALT TLD              September 2015

7.  Normative References

   [I-D.ietf-dnsop-dns-terminology]
              Hoffman, P., Sullivan, A., and K. Fujiwara, "DNS
              Terminology", draft-ietf-dnsop-dns-terminology-05 (work in
              progress), September 2015.

   [RFC1034]  Mockapetris, P., "Domain names - concepts and facilities",
              STD 13, RFC 1034, DOI 10.17487/RFC1034, November 1987,
              <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc1034>.

   [RFC2119]  Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
              Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, DOI 10.17487/
              RFC2119, March 1997,
              <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2119>.

   [RFC6303]  Andrews, M., "Locally Served DNS Zones", BCP 163, RFC
              6303, DOI 10.17487/RFC6303, July 2011,
              <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6303>.

   [RFC6761]  Cheshire, S. and M. Krochmal, "Special-Use Domain Names",
              RFC 6761, DOI 10.17487/RFC6761, February 2013,
              <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6761>.

Appendix A.  Changes / Author Notes.

   [RFC Editor: Please remove this section before publication ]

   From -02 to -03:

   o  Incorporate suggestions from Stephane and Paul Hoffman.

   From -01 to -02:

   o  Merged a bunch of changes from Paul Hoffman.  Thanks for sending a
      git pull.

   From -00 to 01:

   o  Removed the "delegated to new style AS112 servers" text -this was
      legacy from the omnicient AS112 days.  (Joe Abley)

   o  Removed the "Advice to implemntors" section.  This used to
      recommend that people used a subdomain of a domain in the DNS.  It
      was pointed out that this breaks things badly if the domain
      expires.

Kumari & Sullivan         Expires April 2, 2016                 [Page 8]
Internet-Draft               Reserve ALT TLD              September 2015

   o  Added text about why we don't want to adminster a registry for
      ALT.

   From Individual-06 to DNSOP-00

   o  Nothing changed, simply renamed draft-wkumari-dnsop-alt-tld to
      draft-ietf-dnsop-alt-tld

   From -05 to -06

   o  Incorporated comments from a number of people, including a number
      of suggestion heard at the IETF meeting in Dallas, and the DNSOP
      Interim meeting in May, 2015.

   o  Removed the "Let's have an (optional) IANA registry for people to
      (opportinistically) register their string, if they want that
      option" stuff.  It was, um, optional....

   From -04 to -05

   o  Went through and made sure that I'd captured the feedback
      received.

   o  Comments from Ed Lewis.

   o  Filled in the "Domain Name Reservation Considerations" section of
      RFC6761.

   o  Removed examples from .Onion.

   From -03 to -04

   o  Incorporated some comments from Paul Hoffman

   From -02 to -03

   o  After discussions with chairs, made this much more generic (not
      purely non-DNS), and some cleanup.

   From -01 to -02

   o  Removed some fluffy wording, tightened up the language some.

   From -00 to -01.

   o  Fixed the abstract.

Kumari & Sullivan         Expires April 2, 2016                 [Page 9]
Internet-Draft               Reserve ALT TLD              September 2015

   o  Recommended that folk root their non-DNS namespace under a DNS
      namespace that they control (Joe Abley)

Authors' Addresses

   Warren Kumari
   Google
   1600 Amphitheatre Parkway
   Mountain View, CA  94043
   US

   Email: warren@kumari.net

   Andrew Sullivan
   Dyn
   150 Dow Street
   Manchester, NH  03101
   US

   Email: asullivan@dyn.com

Kumari & Sullivan         Expires April 2, 2016                [Page 10]