Guidelines for IANA DNS Root Zone Publication List Providers
draft-hardaker-dnsop-root-zone-pub-list-guidelines-01
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| Document | Type | Active Internet-Draft (individual) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Authors | Wes Hardaker , Warren Kumari , Jim Reid , Geoff Huston | ||
| Last updated | 2026-03-15 | ||
| RFC stream | (None) | ||
| Intended RFC status | (None) | ||
| Formats | |||
| Stream | Stream state | (No stream defined) | |
| Consensus boilerplate | Unknown | ||
| RFC Editor Note | (None) | ||
| IESG | IESG state | I-D Exists | |
| Telechat date | (None) | ||
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| Send notices to | (None) |
draft-hardaker-dnsop-root-zone-pub-list-guidelines-01
Domain Name System Operations W. Hardaker
Internet-Draft W. Kumari
Intended status: Informational Google, Inc.
Expires: 16 September 2026 J. Reid
RTFM llp
G. Huston
APNIC
15 March 2026
Guidelines for IANA DNS Root Zone Publication List Providers
draft-hardaker-dnsop-root-zone-pub-list-guidelines-01
Abstract
This document describes guidelines for entities that wish to publish
a list of URLs from where the contents of the IANA DNS root zone may
be obtained. These guidelines are specifically provided as guidance
to IANA, but these suggestions may be applicable to any entity
wishing to build a list of IANA DNS root zone sources for their own
purposes.
About This Document
This note is to be removed before publishing as an RFC.
The latest revision of this draft can be found at
https://github.io/hardker/draft-hardaker-dnsop-root-zone-publication-
list-guidelines/draft-hardaker-dnsop-root-zone-publication-list-
guidelines.html. Status information for this document may be found
at https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-hardaker-dnsop-root-zone-
pub-list-guidelines/.
Discussion of this document takes place on the Domain Name System
Operations Working Group mailing list (mailto:dnsop@ietf.org), which
is archived at https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/browse/dnsop/.
Subscribe at https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/dnsop/.
Source for this draft and an issue tracker can be found at
https://github.com/https://github.com/hardaker/draft-hardaker-dnsop-
root-zone-publication-list-guidelines.
Status of This Memo
This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the
provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.
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Internet-Draft DNS Root Zone Publication List Guideline March 2026
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This Internet-Draft will expire on 16 September 2026.
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Copyright (c) 2026 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
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Please review these documents carefully, as they describe your rights
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Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2. Conventions and Definitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
3. Guidelines for building a IANA DNS root zone publication
list . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
3.1. Guidelines related to the list of publication points . . 3
3.2. Guidelines related to entries in the list of publication
points . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
4. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
5. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
6. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
6.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
6.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
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1. Introduction
This document describes guidelines for entities that wish to publish
a list of URLs from where the contents of the IANA DNS root zone may
be obtained. These guidelines are specifically provided as guidance
to IANA, but these suggestions may be applicable to any entity
wishing to build a list of IANA DNS root zone sources for their own
purposes.
When implementing a LocalRoot or similar service, as described in
[draft-wkumari-dnsop-localroot-bcp], the contents of the DNS root
zone need to be obtained. Because the contents of the IANA DNS root
zone are crytographically verifiable, it may be obtained from any
source assuming integrity verification has been performed.
Entities, such as IANA, will need to publish a list of acceptable
sources that LocalRoot enabled resolvers can use to routinely fetch
and serve or cache the contents of the IANA DNS root zone. The
guidelines in this document are intended to provide advice to IANA or
any other entity wishing to build such a list of sources.
A separate document
[draft-hardaker-dnsop-iana-root-zone-publication-points] describes
the format of the IANA published list, along with IANA considerations
that request the list's publication.
2. Conventions and Definitions
The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
"SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "NOT RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and
"OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in
BCP 14 [RFC2119] [RFC8174] when, and only when, they appear in all
capitals, as shown here.
3. Guidelines for building a IANA DNS root zone publication list
The following describes the community established guidelines when
developing a list of IANA DNS root zone publication points:
3.1. Guidelines related to the list of publication points
* the list of publication points must be machine readable.
* the list of publication points must not be limited to a particular
size.
* the list of publication points should include publication points
hosted from multiple organizations.
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* the list of publication points should include a service endpoint
from IANA itself.
* the list of publication points must be verifiable as complete
through the use of a cryptographic checksum.
* the list of publication points should be cryptographically
verifiable as to its origin.
* the list of publication points should include multiple protocols
that can be used for fetching the IANA root zone data.
Specifically the list should include both https and AXFR based
sources.
* each item in the list of publication points must be individually
complete and usable in isolation.
* each item in the list of publication points must be a unique URL.
* the publication list should contain a variety of protocols for
LocalRoot implementations to make use of based on implementation
and operator preference. For example, the list should contain
URLs of "http", "https", "axfr", "xot" and "xoh" schemes if
possible.
* at least some publication points should offer usage over direct
IPv4 and IPv6 addresses rather than DNS based names in order to
potentially avoid the need for bootstrapping over regular DNS.
* each item in the list of publication points should be routinely
verified as to its functioning status or else removed from the
list.
3.2. Guidelines related to entries in the list of publication points
* each publication point should make use of widely geographically
distributed service points.
* each publication point must be globally available without imposed
source-based or other filtering.
* https based publication points should offer service equivalent to
existing Content Delivery Networks (CDNs) today.
* AXFR, IXFR and XoT publication points should be as robust as the
existing DNS root servers that offer similar services today.
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* each publication point should have a service level agreement,
ideally at zero cost, with IANA.
4. Security Considerations
TBD
5. IANA Considerations
IANA may wish to carefully consider the suggestions in this document
when building a list of IANA DNS root zone publication points.
6. References
6.1. Normative References
[draft-wkumari-dnsop-localroot-bcp]
"Running a Root Server Local to a Resolver", n.d., <draft-
hardaker-dnsop-dns-xfr-scheme>.
[RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119,
DOI 10.17487/RFC2119, March 1997,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc2119>.
[RFC3986] Berners-Lee, T., Fielding, R., and L. Masinter, "Uniform
Resource Identifier (URI): Generic Syntax", STD 66,
RFC 3986, DOI 10.17487/RFC3986, January 2005,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc3986>.
[RFC4395] Hansen, T., Hardie, T., and L. Masinter, "Guidelines and
Registration Procedures for New URI Schemes", RFC 4395,
DOI 10.17487/RFC4395, February 2006,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc4395>.
[RFC5234] Crocker, D., Ed. and P. Overell, "Augmented BNF for Syntax
Specifications: ABNF", STD 68, RFC 5234,
DOI 10.17487/RFC5234, January 2008,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc5234>.
[RFC5936] Lewis, E. and A. Hoenes, Ed., "DNS Zone Transfer Protocol
(AXFR)", RFC 5936, DOI 10.17487/RFC5936, June 2010,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc5936>.
[RFC8174] Leiba, B., "Ambiguity of Uppercase vs Lowercase in RFC
2119 Key Words", BCP 14, RFC 8174, DOI 10.17487/RFC8174,
May 2017, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8174>.
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[RFC8499] Hoffman, P., Sullivan, A., and K. Fujiwara, "DNS
Terminology", RFC 8499, DOI 10.17487/RFC8499, January
2019, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8499>.
[RFC9103] Toorop, W., Dickinson, S., Sahib, S., Aras, P., and A.
Mankin, "DNS Zone Transfer over TLS", RFC 9103,
DOI 10.17487/RFC9103, August 2021,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc9103>.
6.2. Informative References
[draft-hardaker-dnsop-iana-root-zone-publication-points]
"A format for publishing a list of sources of IANA root
zone data", n.d., <https://github.com/hardaker/draft-
hardaker-dnsop-iana-root-zone-publication-points>.
[RFC7766] Dickinson, J., Dickinson, S., Bellis, R., Mankin, A., and
D. Wessels, "DNS Transport over TCP - Implementation
Requirements", RFC 7766, DOI 10.17487/RFC7766, March 2016,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc7766>.
Acknowledgments
TBD
Authors' Addresses
Wes Hardaker
Google, Inc.
Email: ietf@hardakers.net
Warren Kumari
Google, Inc.
Email: warren@kumari.net
Jim Reid
RTFM llp
St Andrews House
382 Hillington Road, Glasgow Scotland
G51 4BL
United Kingdom
Email: jim@rfc1035.com
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Geoff Huston
APNIC
6 Cordelia St
South Brisbane QLD 4101
Australia
Email: gih@apnic.net
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