An IANA root zone publication source list format
draft-hardaker-dnsop-root-zone-publication-points-02
This document is an Internet-Draft (I-D).
Anyone may submit an I-D to the IETF.
This I-D is not endorsed by the IETF and has no formal standing in the
IETF standards process.
| Document | Type | Active Internet-Draft (individual) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Authors | Wes Hardaker , Warren Kumari , Jim Reid , Geoff Huston | ||
| Last updated | 2026-06-01 | ||
| 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) | ||
| Responsible AD | (None) | ||
| Send notices to | (None) |
draft-hardaker-dnsop-root-zone-publication-points-02
Domain Name System Operations W. Hardaker
Internet-Draft W. Kumari
Updates: RFC8806 (if approved) Google, Inc.
Intended status: Standards Track J. Reid
Expires: 3 December 2026 RTFM llp
G. Huston
APNIC
1 June 2026
An IANA root zone publication source list format
draft-hardaker-dnsop-root-zone-publication-points-02
Abstract
This document describes a machine readable format to be used by IANA
to publish a list of sources where the contents of the IANA DNS Root
Zone may be fetched from.
About This Document
This note is to be removed before publishing as an RFC.
Status information for this document may be found at
https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-hardaker-dnsop-iana-root-zone-
publication-points/.
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-points.
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 https://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/current/.
Hardaker, et al. Expires 3 December 2026 [Page 1]
Internet-Draft IANA root zone publication point list fo June 2026
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 3 December 2026.
Copyright Notice
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
Provisions Relating to IETF Documents (https://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 to this document. Code Components
extracted from this document must include Revised BSD License text as
described in Section 4.e of the Trust Legal Provisions and are
provided without warranty as described in the Revised BSD License.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
2. IANA maintained list of root zone publication points . . . . 3
2.1. Root zone publication points . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
3. Operational Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
4. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
5. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
6. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
6.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
6.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
1. Introduction
DNS recursive resolvers implementing functionality such as LocalRoot
[draft-wkumari-dnsop-localroot-bcp] need to obtain the contents of
the IANA DNS root zone on a regular basis. This document describes a
machine readable format that can be used by IANA to publish a list of
sources that can be used for obtaining the contents of the IANA DNS
Root Zone.
Hardaker, et al. Expires 3 December 2026 [Page 2]
Internet-Draft IANA root zone publication point list fo June 2026
2. IANA maintained list of root zone publication points
The list of IANA root zone data publication points, available at TBD-
URL, may be used to discover where the IANA root zone data can be
fetched from.
It is expected that this will be used as described in
[draft-wkumari-dnsop-localroot-bcp], and may be used by the resolver
software directly, or by the operating system a resolver is deployed
on, or by a network operator when configuring a resolver.
The contents of the IANA DNS root publication points file MUST be
verifiable as to its integrity as having come from IANA and MUST be
verifiable as being complete.
2.1. Root zone publication points
NOTE: this is but an example format that is expected to spur
discussions within IETF working groups like DNSOP. Whether this is a
list in a simple line-delimited format like below or signed JSON or
signed PGP or ... is subject to debate.
The IANA root zone data publication points file is structured into
two distinct segments, divided by a line consisting of four dashes
followed by a newline ("----\n"). The first segment contains a list
of URLs, one per line. The second segment provides a signature or
cryptographic checksum.
While this specific format was originally designed for IANA's
maintained list of root zone publication points, it may also be used
by other publication point aggregation lists.
The list may include URLs using any protocol capable of transferring
DNS zone data, including HTTP or HTTPS [RFC9110] (DNS zone file
presentation format over HTTP or HTTPS), AXFR
[draft-hardaker-dnsop-dns-xfr-scheme], XoT
[draft-hardaker-dnsop-dns-xfr-scheme], "XoH" (DNS AXFR over HTTP)
[draft-hardaker-dnsop-dns-xfr-scheme], etc. URLs using http or https
schemes are for transferring zone file contents in presentation
format, not for indicating an AXFR transfer over DNS over HTTPS.
URLs for performing an AXFR over the protocol DNS over HTTPS should
use the "xoh" scheme instead.
Each URL MUST occur on its own line. Lines beginning with the "#"
character are considered comments and MUST be ignored. Leading and
trailing whitespace on each line SHOULD be ignored.
Hardaker, et al. Expires 3 December 2026 [Page 3]
Internet-Draft IANA root zone publication point list fo June 2026
Any URLs that reference an unknown transfer protocol in the LocalRoot
implementations SHOULD be discarded. If after filtering the list
there are no acceptable list elements left, the resolver MUST revert
to using regular DNS queries to the IANA root zone instead of
operating as a LocalRoot.
The first line of the cryptographic checksum section will contain a
checksum or signature type string specifying what the remaining lines
in the checksum or signature section will contain. (Ed note: this
section is underspecified. We expect to refine this as we get
feedback from the working group.)
A minimal example publication point file, containing a single AXFR
publication point with a target of b.root-servers.net:
http://www.internic.net/domain/root.zone
https://www.internic.net/domain/root.zone
axfr:lax.xfr.dns.icann.org/.
axfr:iad.xfr.dns.icann.org/.
axfr:b.root-servers.net/.
----
SHA256
500c443200c172d81f9811710530c1c244c0b45e702b53ad5bc3a83234f460b3
Future note: this should eventually be a signature from an identity,
regardless of format, that can be traced back to IANA being the
authoritative publisher and not just a simple checksum.
3. Operational Considerations
Implementations SHOULD optimize retrieval to minimize impacts on the
server. Because the list is not expected to change frequently,
implementations SHOULD refrain from querying IANA's source more than
once a week.
TBD
4. Security Considerations
It is critical that LocalRoot implementations (or other any code
bases) making use of the publication point list format described in
this document verify the contents using the encoded checksum to
ensure it has not been tampered with.
TBD
Hardaker, et al. Expires 3 December 2026 [Page 4]
Internet-Draft IANA root zone publication point list fo June 2026
5. IANA Considerations
TBD: describe the request for IANA to support a list of root server
publication points at TBD-URL.
6. References
6.1. Normative References
[BCP237] Best Current Practice 237,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/bcp237>.
At the time of writing, this BCP comprises the following:
Hoffman, P., "DNS Security Extensions (DNSSEC)", BCP 237,
RFC 9364, DOI 10.17487/RFC9364, February 2023,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc9364>.
[RFC4033] Arends, R., Austein, R., Larson, M., Massey, D., and S.
Rose, "DNS Security Introduction and Requirements",
RFC 4033, DOI 10.17487/RFC4033, March 2005,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc4033>.
[RFC8976] Wessels, D., Barber, P., Weinberg, M., Kumari, W., and W.
Hardaker, "Message Digest for DNS Zones", RFC 8976,
DOI 10.17487/RFC8976, February 2021,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8976>.
6.2. Informative References
[draft-hardaker-dnsop-dns-xfr-scheme]
"The DNS XFR URI Schemes", n.d.,
<https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-hardaker-dnsop-
dns-xfr-scheme/>.
[draft-hardaker-dnsop-root-zone-publication-list-guidelines]
"Guidelines for IANA DNS Root Zone Publication List
Providers", n.d., <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-
hardaker-dnsop-root-zone-publication-list-guidelines>.
[draft-wkumari-dnsop-localroot-bcp]
"Populating resolvers with the root zone", n.d.,
<https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-wkumari-dnsop-
localroot-bcp/>.
[NOROOTS] "On Eliminating Root Nameservers from the DNS", n.d.,
<https://www.icir.org/mallman/pubs/All19b/All19b.pdf>.
Hardaker, et al. Expires 3 December 2026 [Page 5]
Internet-Draft IANA root zone publication point list fo June 2026
[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>.
[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>.
[RFC9110] Fielding, R., Ed., Nottingham, M., Ed., and J. Reschke,
Ed., "HTTP Semantics", STD 97, RFC 9110,
DOI 10.17487/RFC9110, June 2022,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc9110>.
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
Geoff Huston
APNIC
6 Cordelia St
South Brisbane QLD 4101
Australia
Email: gih@apnic.net
Hardaker, et al. Expires 3 December 2026 [Page 6]