Nameservers for the Address and Routing Parameter Area ("arpa") DomainInternet Assigned Numbers AuthorityPTI/ICANN12025 Waterfront DriveLos Angeles90094United States of Americakim.davies@iana.orgEricsson Research02700 KauniainenFinlandjari.arkko@ericsson.comInternet-DraftThis document describes revisions to operational practices to separate
function of the “arpa” top-level domain in the DNS from its historical
operation alongside the DNS root zone.The “arpa” top-level domain is designated as an
“infrastructure domain” to support techniques defined by Internet
standards. Zones under the “arpa” domain provide various mappings, such
as IP addresses to domain names and E.164 numbers to URIs. It also
contains special use names such as “home”, which is a non-unique name
used in residential networks.Historically, the “arpa” zone has been hosted on almost all of the
root name servers, and envisages the “arpa” domain to be
“sufficiently critical that the operational requirements for the root
servers apply to the operational requirements of the “arpa” servers”. To
date, this has been implemented by serving the “arpa” domain directly on
a subset of the root server infrastructure.This bundling of root server and “arpa” server operations has entwined
management of the zones contents and their infrastructure. As a result,
some proposals under consideration by the IETF involving the “arpa” zone
have been discarded due to the risk of conflict with root operations.The separation described in this document resolves operational impacts
of synchronizing edits to the root zone and the “arpa” zone by
eliminating the current dependency and allowing more tailored operations
based on the unique requirements of each zone.The “arpa” domain continues to play a role in critical Internet
operations, and this change does not propose weakening operational
requirements described in for the domain. Future operational
requirements for the “arpa” domain are encouraged to follow strong
baseline requirements such as those documented in .Changes to the administration of the “arpa” zone do not alter the
management practices of other zones delegated within the “arpa”
namespace. For example, “ip6.arpa” would continue to be managed in
accordance with .The process will dedicate new hostnames to the servers authoritative for
the “arpa” zone, but will initially serve the “arpa” zone from the same
hosts.Once completed, subsequent transitional phases could include using
new hosts to replace or augment the existing root server hosts, and
separation of the editing and distribution of the “arpa” zone from
necessarily being connected to the root zone. Any future management
considerations regarding how such changes may be performed are beyond
the scope of this document.Consistent with the use of the “arpa” namespace itself to host name
servers for other delegations in the “arpa” zone (), this
document specifies a new namespace of “ns.arpa”, with the
nameserver set for the “arpa” zone to be labelled as follows:Dedicated hostnames eliminate a logical dependency that requires the
coordinated editing of the nameservers for the “arpa” zone and the root
zone. This component of this transition does not require the underlying
hosts that provide “arpa” name service (that is, the root servers) be
altered. The “arpa” zone will initially map the new hostnames to the
same IP addresses that already provide service under the respective
hostnames within root-servers.net.Because these nameservers are completely in-bailiwick of the “arpa” zone,
they will require glue records in the root zone. This is consistent with
current practice and requires no operational changes to the root zone.After initially migrating the “arpa” zone to use hostnames that are not shared
with the root zone, the underlying name service is expected to evolve such that
it no longer directly aligns to a subset of root server instances. With no
shared infrastructure between the root servers and the “arpa” servers, future
novel applications for the “arpa” zone may be possible.Any subsequent changes to the parties providing name service for the
zone is considered a normal management responsibility, and would be
performed in accordance with .Publication of the “arpa” zone file to the authoritative “arpa” name
servers is currently undertaken alongside the root zone maintenance functions.
Upon the separation of the “arpa” infrastructure from the root server
infrastructure, publication of the “arpa” zone no longer necessarily needs
to be technically linked or inter-related to the root zone publication
mechanisms.Full technical separation of “arpa” operations from root operations
minimally requires the following to be satisfied:The “arpa” zone no longer shares any hostnames in its NS-set with the root
zone;The hosts that provide authoritative name service are not the same hosts
as the root servers, do not share any IPv4 or IPv6 addresses with the
root servers, and are sufficiently separately provisioned such
that any unique “arpa” zone requirements can be deployed without affecting
how root zone service is provided;The editorial and publication process for the “arpa” zone has any common
dependencies with the root zone process removed, so that the “arpa” zone
can be managed, edited and provisioned wholly independently of the
root zone.Such separation is ultimately sought to allow for novel uses of
the “arpa” zone without the risk of inadvertantly impacting root zone and root
server operations. It is recognized that achieving this state requires a
deliberative process involving significant coordination to ensure impacts
are minimized.The IANA shall coordinate the creation of the “ns.arpa” namespace and
populate it with address records that reflect the IP addresses of the
contemporary root servers documented within “root-servers.net” as its
initial state.The IANA will initially migrate the 12 NS records for the “arpa” zone
to point to their respective new entries in the “ns.arpa” domain.Subsequently, the IAB and IANA will consult and coordinate with all relevant
parties on activity to reduce or eliminate reliance upon root zone
and root server infrastructure for serving the “arpa” zone. Such
changes will be performed in compliance with and shall
be conducted with all due care and deliberation to mitigate potential
impacts on critical infrastructure.The security of the “arpa” zone is not necessarily impacted by any
aspects of these changes. Robust practices associated with administering
the content of the zone (including signing operations) as well as its
distribution will continue to be necessary.Management Guidelines & Operational Requirements for the Address and Routing Parameter Area Domain ("arpa")This memo describes the management and operational requirements for the address and routing parameter area ("arpa") domain. This document specifies an Internet Best Current Practices for the Internet Community, and requests discussion and suggestions for improvements.Nameservers for IPv4 and IPv6 Reverse ZonesThis document specifies a stable naming scheme for the nameservers that serve the zones IN-ADDR.ARPA and IP6.ARPA in the DNS. These zones contain data that facilitate reverse mapping (address to name). This memo documents an Internet Best Current Practice.DNS Root Name Service Protocol and Deployment RequirementsThe DNS root name service is a critical part of the Internet architecture. The protocol and deployment requirements for the DNS root name service are defined in this document. Operational requirements are out of scope.Thank you Alyssa Cooper, Michelle Cotton, Lars-John Liman, Wes Hardaker,
Ted Hardie, Paul Hoffman, Russ Housley, Oscar Robles-Garay, Duane
Wessels and Suzanne Woolf for providing review and feedback.