The ALT Special Use Top Level Domain
draft-ietf-dnsop-alt-tld-15

dnsop                                                          W. Kumari
Internet-Draft                                                    Google
Intended status: Informational                              14 June 2022
Expires: 16 December 2022

                  The ALT Special Use Top Level Domain
                      draft-ietf-dnsop-alt-tld-15

Abstract

   This document reserves a string (ALT) to be used as a TLD label in
   non-DNS contexts.  It also provides advice and guidance to developers
   developing alternative namespaces.

   [Ed note: Text inside square brackets ([]) is additional background
   information, answers to frequently asked questions, general musings,
   etc.  They will be removed before publication.  This document is
   being collaborated on in Github at: https://github.com/wkumari/draft-
   wkumari-dnsop-alt-tld.  The most recent version of the document, open
   issues, etc should all be available here.  The authors (gratefully)
   accept pull requests. ]

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
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   Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months
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   This Internet-Draft will expire on 16 December 2022.

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (c) 2022 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.

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   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
     1.1.  Requirements Notation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   2
     1.2.  Terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   2
   2.  Background  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
   3.  The ALT Namespace . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
     3.1.  Choice of the ALT Name  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
   4.  IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
     4.1.  Domain Name Reservation Considerations  . . . . . . . . .   5
   5.  Privacy Considerations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   6
   6.  Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7
   7.  Acknowledgements  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7
   8.  References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7
     8.1.  Normative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7
     8.2.  Informative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   8
   Appendix A.  Changes / Author Notes.  . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   8
   Author's Address  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  11

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 reserves the label "ALT" (short
   for "Alternative") as a Special Use Domain ([RFC6761]).  This label
   is intended to be used as the final (rightmost) label to signify that
   the name is not rooted in the DNS, and that it should not be resolved
   using the DNS protocol.

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 [RFC7719] for
   terminology.  Readers are also expected to be familiar with the
   discussions in [RFC8244]

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

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

   *  non-DNS context: Any other (alternative) namespace.

   *  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.  This term is not intended to be pejorative.

   *  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 success of the DNS makes it a natural starting point for systems
   that need to name entities in a non-DNS context.

   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 alternative namespace, using browser plugins, shims
   in the name resolution process, or simply applications that perform
   special handling of this particular alternative namespace.  An
   example of such a system is the Tor network's [Dingledine2004] use of
   the ".onion" Special-Use Top-Level Domain Name (see [RFC7686]).

   In many cases, the creators of these alternative namespaces have
   chosen a convenient or descriptive string and started using it.
   These strings are not registered anywhere nor are they part of the
   DNS.  However, to users and to some applications, they appear to be
   TLDs; and issues may arise if they are looked up in the DNS.  This
   document suggests that name resolution libraries (stub resolvers)
   recognize names ending in ".alt" as special, and not attempt to look
   them up using the DNS protocol in order to limit the effects of
   queries accidentally leaking into the DNS.

   The techniques in this document are primarily intended to address the
   "Experimental Squatting Problem", the "Land Rush Problem", and "Name
   Collisions" issues discussed in [RFC8244] (which contains much
   additional background, etc).

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3.  The ALT Namespace

   This document reserves the ALT label, using the [RFC6761] process,
   for use as an unmanaged pseudo-TLD namespace.  The ALT label MAY be
   used in any domain name as a pseudo-TLD to signify that this is an
   alternative (non-DNS) namespace, and should not be looked up in a DNS
   context.

   Alternative namespaces should differentiate themselves from other
   alternative 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 names beneath ALT are in an alternative namespace, they have no
   significance in the regular DNS context and so should not be looked
   up in the DNS context.

   Groups wishing to create new alternative namespaces may create their
   alternative namespace under a label that names their namespace under
   the ALT label.  They should attempt to choose a label that they
   expect to be unique and, ideally, descriptive.  There is no IANA
   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 be
   created to assist the developer community.

   Currently deployed projects and protocols that are using pseudo-TLDs
   may choose 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
   alternative 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.
   While these are not DNS names, 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 alternative 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.

   A short label was deemed desirable for a number of reasons,
   including:

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   *  this is a switch to other resolution contexts, some of which may
      have long labels (for example derived from public keys).

   *  some queries will undoubtedly leak into the DNS.  As many of these
      alternate resolution systems are specifically designed for
      privacy, limiting how far they leak is desirable.

   *  to encourage voluntary usage of the label, it needs to be
      attractive to implementors of alternate resolution contexts so
      that they are willing to use it.

4.  IANA Considerations

   The IANA is requested to add the ALT string to the "Special-Use
   Domain Name" registry ([RFC6761], and reference this document.

4.1.  Domain Name Reservation Considerations

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

   The string ".alt." (and names ending with the string .alt) are
   special in the following ways:

   1.  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 handling of them, or
       that applications themselves will recognize the strings as
       special, and perform special handling.  If the user tries to
       resolve a name of the form <namespace>.alt without the
       <namespace> plugin installed (or in the wrong application), the
       request will leak into the DNS, receive a negative response, and
       the resolution will fail.

   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 handling with
       them.  Other applications are not required to perform any special
       handling (but may choose to provide helpful informational
       messages if able).

   3.  Writers of name resolution APIs and libraries which operate in
       the DNS context should not attempt to look these names up in the
       DNS.  If developers of other namespaces implement their namespace
       through a "shim" or library, they will need to intercept and
       perform their own handling.

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   4.  Caching DNS servers SHOULD NOT recognize these names as special
       and should not perform any special handling with them.

   5.  Authoritative DNS servers SHOULD NOT recognize these names as
       special and should not perform any special handling with them.

   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.

   Earlier versions of this document requested that .ALT be added to the
   "Locally Served Zones" registry, and that a DNSSEC insecure
   delegation (a delegation with no DS record) be created at the root.
   Significant discussion on the DNSOP list (and an interim meeting)
   generated the consensus that these names are specifically not DNS
   names, and that them leaking into the DNS is an error.  This means
   that the current (non-delegated) response of NXDOMAIN is correct as
   there is no DNS domain .alt, and so the document was updated to
   remove these requests.

5.  Privacy Considerations

   This document reserves ALT to be used to indicate that a name is not
   a DNS name, and so should not attempt to be resolved using the DNS.
   Unfortunately, these queries will undoubtedly leak into the DNS - for
   example, a user may receive an email containing a hostname which
   should be resolved using a specific resolution context (implemented
   by a specific application or resolution mechanism).  If the user does
   not have that particular application installed (and their stub
   resolver library has not been updated to ignore queries for names
   ending in .alt), it is likely that this will instead be resolved
   using the DNS.  This DNS query will likely be sent to the configured
   iterative resolver.  If this resolver does not have a cache entry for
   this name (or, if the resolver implements [RFC8198], an entry for
   .alt) this query will likely be sent to the DNS root servers.  This
   exposes the (leaked) query name to the operator of the resolver, the
   operator of the queried DNS root server, and anyone watching queries
   along the path.  This is a general problem with alternative name
   spaces and not confined to names ending in .alt.

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6.  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.  This could occur 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.

7.  Acknowledgements

   We would like to thank Joe Abley, Mark Andrews, Erik Auerswald, Marc
   Blanchet, John Bond, Stephane Bortzmeyer, David Cake, David Conrad,
   Steve Crocker, Brian Dickson, Ralph Droms, Robert Edmonds, Patrik
   Faltstrom, Olafur Gudmundsson, Bob Harold, Paul Hoffman, Joel
   Jaeggli, Ted Lemon, Edward Lewis, John Levine, George Michaelson, Ed
   Pascoe, Jim Reid, Arturo Servin, Paul Vixie and Suzanne Woolf for
   feedback.

   Christian Grothoff was also very helpful and deserves special
   recognition.

   In addition, Andrew Sullivan was an author from adoption (2015)
   through version 14 (2021).

8.  References

8.1.  Normative References

   [RFC1034]  Mockapetris, P., "Domain names - concepts and facilities",
              STD 13, RFC 1034, DOI 10.17487/RFC1034, November 1987,
              <https://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,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2119>.

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

   [RFC7686]  Appelbaum, J. and A. Muffett, "The ".onion" Special-Use
              Domain Name", RFC 7686, DOI 10.17487/RFC7686, October
              2015, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7686>.

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   [RFC7719]  Hoffman, P., Sullivan, A., and K. Fujiwara, "DNS
              Terminology", RFC 7719, DOI 10.17487/RFC7719, December
              2015, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7719>.

8.2.  Informative References

   [Dingledine2004]
              Dingledine, R., Mathewson, N., and P. Syverson, "Tor: The
              Second-Generation Onion Router", August 2004,
              <https://svn.torproject.org/svn/projects/design-paper/tor-
              design.html>.

   [RFC8198]  Fujiwara, K., Kato, A., and W. Kumari, "Aggressive Use of
              DNSSEC-Validated Cache", RFC 8198, DOI 10.17487/RFC8198,
              July 2017, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8198>.

   [RFC8244]  Lemon, T., Droms, R., and W. Kumari, "Special-Use Domain
              Names Problem Statement", RFC 8244, DOI 10.17487/RFC8244,
              October 2017, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8244>.

Appendix A.  Changes / Author Notes.

   [RFC Editor: Please remove this section before publication ]

   From -14 to -15:

   *  [Pinky]: Gee, Brain.  What are we going to do tonight?

   *  [The Brain]: The same thing we do every 6 months, Pinky.  Post a
      new version of this document, with only the version number
      changed.

   From -13 to -14:

   *  Andrew asked to be removed as co-author, due to potential
      perception of CoI.

   *  Erik Auerswald provided Github issues and comments re: references
      and grammar.

   From -12 to -13:

   *  Just bumping versions to prevent expiration.

   From -08 to -12:

   *  Just bumping versions to prevent expiration.

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   *  Updated references (aggressive-nsec is now RFC 8198, draft-ietf-
      dnsop-sutld-ps is now 8244).

   From -07 to -08:

   *  Made it clear that this is only for non-DNS.

   *  As per Interim consensus, removed the "add this to local zones"
      text.

   *  Added a Privacy Considerations section

   *  Grammar fix -- "alternative" is more correct than "alternate",
      replaced.

   From -06 to -07:

   *  Rolled up the GItHub releases in to a full release.

   From -07.2 to -07.3 (GitHub point release):

      Removed 'sandbox' at Stephane's suggestion - https://www.ietf.org/
      mail-archive/web/dnsop/current/msg18495.html

      Suggested (in 4.1 bullet 3) that DNS libraries ignore these -- Bob
      Harold - https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/dnsop/
      a_ruPf8osSzi_hCzCqOxYLXhYoA

      Added some pointers to the SUTLD document.

   From -07.1 to -07.2 (Github point release):

   *  Reverted the <TBD> string (at request of chairs).

   *  Added an editors note explaining the above.

   *  Removed some more background, editorializing, etc.

   From -06 to -07.1 (https://github.com/wkumari/draft-wkumari-dnsop-
   alt-tld/tree/7988fcf06100f7a17f21e6993b781690b5774472):

   *  Replaced ALT with <TBD> at the suggestions of George.

   From -05 to -06:

   *  Removed a large amount of background - we now have the (adopted)
      tldr document for that.

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   *  Made it clear that pseudo-TLD is not intended to be pejorative.

   *  Tried to make it cleat that this is something people can choose to
      use - or not.

   From -04 to -05:

   *  Version bump - we are waiting in the queue for progress on SUN,
      bumping this to keep it alive.

   From -03 to -04:

   *  3 changes - the day, the month and the year (a bump to keep
      alive).

   From -02 to -03:

   *  Incorporate suggestions from Stephane and Paul Hoffman.

   From -01 to -02:

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

   From -00 to 01:

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

   *  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.

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

   From Individual-06 to DNSOP-00

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

   From -05 to -06

   *  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.

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   *  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

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

   *  Comments from Ed Lewis.

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

   *  Removed examples from .Onion.

   From -03 to -04

   *  Incorporated some comments from Paul Hoffman

   From -02 to -03

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

   From -01 to -02

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

   From -00 to -01.

   *  Fixed the abstract.

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

Author's Address

   Warren Kumari
   Google
   1600 Amphitheatre Parkway
   Mountain View, CA,  94043
   United States of America
   Email: warren@kumari.net

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