Internet Engineering Task Force William Dutcher Internet-Draft VeriSign, Inc. February 15, 2002 Kevin McCandless Illuminet, Inc. Expires: August 15, 2002 Category: Informational ENUM Root Domain 1. Status of this Memo This document is an Internet-Draft and is in full confor- mance with all provisions of Section 10 of RFC2026. Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engi- neering 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/lid-abstracts.html. The list of Internet-Draft Shadow Directories can be accessed at http://www.ietf.org/shadow.html. 2. Abstract RFC 2916 specifies that the domain e164.arpa is the root domain for the DNS storage for NAPTR records for ENUMs. This document proposes that the root domain referenced in RFC 2916 be changed from e164.arpa to a generic domain, such as e164.foo. This would give developers of ENUM applica- tions a greater degree of flexibility in configuring DNS structures for ENUM. 3. Discussion RFC 2916 specifies that the domain e164.arpa be used as the root domain for the DNS storage hierarchy for NAPTR records for ENUMs. However, several contributions have been made to the ITU-T Study Group 2 proposing alternative roots, as well -2- as alternative DNS hierarchies. This document proposes that the root domain referenced in RFC 2916 be changed from e164.arpa to a generic domain. This would allow the developers of ENUM applications, as well as the providers of DNS infrastructures that support ENUM, a greater degree of flexibility in configuring DNS structures that will be used by ENUM. This change will also allow the RFC to guide the technical specifications of ENUM, rather than describe policy. According to RFC 2916, the only DNS domain in which ENUM NAPTR records should be stored is the e164.arpa domain. The RFC is specific in this regard, as indicated in the Section 2 of the RFC: "2. E.164 Numbers and DNS The domain "e164.arpa" is being populated in order to pro- vide the infrastructure in DNS for storage of E.164 numbers. In order to facilitate distributed operations, this domain is divided into subdomains. Holders of E.164 numbers, which want to be listed in DNS, should contact the appropriate zone administrator in order to be listed, by examining the SOA resource record associated with zone, just like in nor- mal DNS operations." In specifying the use of the e164.arpa domain for ENUM DNS records, the RFC may force designers of ENUM applications and systems into using a DNS root domain that does not meet the operational requirements of an ENUM application. For example, it may be more practical for an ENUM application to be in a different root-level domain. Several contributions to the ENUM Forum and to ITU-T Study Group 2 have suggested various tiered architectures, each of which may be more efficient and more practical if they are not tied by the RFC to the e164.arpa domain. Since RFC 2916 specifies .arpa as the TLD, it has created a policy decision rather than a technical decision. As a result, policy agencies are struggling with the .arpra issue instead of deciding whether or not global ENUM is an appro- priate approach. If this policy recommendation is removed from RFC 2916, these agencies will be able to address the TLD for ENUM without the burden of the TLD decision having been presupposed. Furthermore, the U.S. government supports a domain-neutral approach to ENUM implementation. Removing the reference to the e164.arpa domain for ENUM DNS systems will create a domain-neutral position in the RFC, and remove a mandate that may inhibit the flexibility of the design and develop- ment of ENUM systems. -3- 4. Recommendation The recommendation is that the references to the e164.arpa domain in RFC 2916 be changed to refer to a generic domain, such as "e164.foo". 5. IANA Considerations There are no IANA issues to consider in this draft. This is an informational draft. 6. Security Considerations There are no security considerations in this draft. This is an informational draft. 7. References RFC 2915 - M. Mealling and R. Daniel, "The Naming Authority Pointer (NAPTR) DNS Resource Record", September 2000. RFC 2916 - P.Faltstrom, "E.164 number and DNS", September 2000. 8. Authors' Addresses William Dutcher VeriSign, Inc. 21355 Ridgetop Circle Sterling, VA 20166 United States Phone: +1-703-948-4457 Fax: +1-703-450-7978 Email: bdutcher@verisign.com Kevin McCandless Illuminet, Inc. 7400 West 129th Street Overland Park, KS 66213 United States Phone: +1-913-814-6397 Fax: +1-913-814-6505 Email: kmccandless@illuminet.com A. Full Copyright Statement Copyright (C) The Internet Society 2002. All Rights Reserved. This document and translations of it may be copied and fur- nished to others, and derivative works that comment on or otherwise explain it or assist in its implementation may be prepared, copied, published and distributed, in whole or in part, without restriction of any kind, provided that the -4- above copyright notice and this paragraph are included on all such copies and derivative works. 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