Internet Engineering Task Force L. Zhou
Internet-Draft N. Kong
Intended status: Informational S. Shen
Expires: April 15, 2014 CNNIC
S. Sheng
ICANN
A. Servin
LACNIC
Oct 2013
Registration Data Access Protocol Object Inventory Analysis
draft-ietf-weirds-object-inventory-01
Abstract
WHOIS output objects from registries (including both Regional
Internet Registries (RIRs) and Domain Name Registries (DNRs)) were
collected and analyzed. This document describes the statistical
analysis process and result of existing WHOIS information. The
purpose of this document is to build an object inventory to
facilitate discussions of data objects included in Registration Data
Access Protocol (RDAP) responses.
Status of This Memo
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Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2. Terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
3. Methodology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
4. RIR Objects Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
4.1. WHOIS Data of Organizations Holding a Resource . . . . . 5
4.2. WHOIS Data of Contact . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
4.3. WHOIS Data of IP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
4.4. WHOIS Data of ASN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
4.5. Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
5. DNR Objects Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
5.1. Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
5.2. Public Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
5.2.1. WHOIS Data of Domain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
5.2.2. WHOIS Data of Contact . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
5.2.2.1. Registrant . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
5.2.2.2. Admin Contact . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
5.2.2.3. Tech Contact . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
5.2.2.4. Billing Contact . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
5.2.3. WHOIS Data of Nameserver . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
5.2.4. WHOIS Data of Registrar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
5.3. Other Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
5.4. Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
5.4.1. Preliminary Statistics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
5.4.2. Data Elements Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
5.4.3. Labels Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
5.4.4. Other Objects Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
5.5. Limitation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
6. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
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7. Security considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
8. Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
9. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
Appendix A. Change Log . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
1. Introduction
RIRs and DNRs have historically maintained a lookup service to permit
public access to some portion of the registry database. Most
registries offer the service via the WHOIS protocol [RFC3912], with
additional services being offered via world wide web pages, bulk
downloads, and other services, such as RPSL [RFC2622].
Although the WHOIS protocol specified in [RFC3912] is widely adopted
and supported, it has several shortcomings that limits its usefulness
to the evolving needs of the Internet community. For example, the
WHOIS protocol has not been Internationalized, it does not
consistently support Internationalized Domain Name (IDN, described in
[RFC5890]); WHOIS has no query and response format; and WHOIS
protocol does not support user authentication, access control for
differentiated access.
This document is aimed to build an object inventory to facilitate
discussions of registration data objects. Based on this statistics
result, it may help to form and specify the RDAP response format.
In number space, there are altogether 5 RIRs. All RIRs provide
information about IP addresses, Autonomous System Number (ASNs) and
contacts, the data model used is different for each RIR. In domain
name space, there are now over 200 ccTLDs and 21 gTLDs. Different
domain name registries may have different WHOIS response objects and
formats. A common understanding of all these data formats is
critical.
This document describes the WHOIS data collection procedures and
gives a data object inventory analysis based on the collected data
from 5 RIRs and 106 ccTLDs and 18 gTLDs from DNRs. The RIR data
objects are classified into IP address, ASN, person or contact and
the organization that held the resource. The DNR data objects are
classified into domain, contact, nameserver and registrar related
objects. Other objects that do not belong to above categories are
viewed as private designed objects. In this document, we are not
intended to analyze all the query and response types existed in RIRs
and DNRs. The most common query objects will be discussed, other
objects such as RPSL data structure used by Internet Routing
Registries (IRRs) will be added at a later time if the community
feels it is necessary.
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Since this is a document with statistics analysis and there are no
protocol specifications, the [RFC2119] language does not apply.
2. Terminology
o Data element -- The name of specific response object.
o Label -- Different registries may have different naming ways for
the same data element. So there may be several labels with the
same meaning and belong to one group of data element.
o Most popular label -- The label which is most supported by the
registries.
o Number of labels -- The number of different labels.
o Total count -- The number of registries that support a certain
data element.
3. Methodology
WHOIS information, including port 43 response and web response data,
is collected following the procedures described below.
RIR objects collection process:
(1) The process of RIR data collection is relatively easy. There
are altogether 5 RIRs which are AFRINIC, APNIC, ARIN, LACNIC and
RIPE NCC. All the RIRs provide information of IPs, ASNs and
contacts. Find the 5 RIR WHOIS servers firstly.
(2) Query the corresponding IPs, ASNs, contacts and organizations
registered in 5 RIRs and make a comparative analysis of the
responses data.
(3) Data elements with the same meaning, but using different labels,
are grouped together.
DNR objects collections process:
(1) A programming script is applied to collect port 43 response data
from 294 ccTLDs. "nic.ccTLD" is used as the query string which is
usually registered in a domain registry. Responses of 106 ccTLDs
were received. 18 gTLDs' port 43 response data is collected from
their contracts with ICANN. So the sample size of port 43 WHOIS
response data is 124 registries in total.
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(2) WHOIS data from web is collected manually from the 124
registries that have port 43 WHOIS responses.
(3) Some of the responses which are collected by program may not
seem to be correct. So data of top 10 ccTLD registries, like .de,
.eu and .uk etc., was re-verified by querying domain names other
than "nic.ccTLD".
(4) In accordance with the specification 4 of new gTLD applicant
guide book, [RFC5730], [RFC5731], [RFC5732] and [RFC5733], the
response data objects are classified into public and other data
objects. Public data objects are those which are defined in the
above two documents. Other objects are those which are self
designed data elements or objects in different registries.
(5) Data elements with the same meaning, but using different labels,
are grouped together. The numbers of registries that support the
data elements is calculated in the total count column.
4. RIR Objects Analysis
4.1. WHOIS Data of Organizations Holding a Resource
The following table shows the organization objects of 5 RIRs.
+------------+----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+
| RIR | AFRINIC | APNIC | ARIN | LACNIC | RIPE NCC |
| Objects | | | | | |
+------------+----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+
| Organizati | Organisa | role | Name | Owner | org-name |
| on name | tion | | | | |
| Organizati | org-name | nic-hdl | Handle | owner-id | organisa |
| on ID | | | | | tion |
| Company | NA | NA | Company | NA | NA |
| Name of | NA | NA | NA | responsi | NA |
| person res | | | | ble | |
| ponsible | | | | | |
| Type of or | org-type | NA | NA | NA | org-type |
| ganization | | | | | |
| Country | country | country | country | country | NA |
| Postal | address | address | address | address | address |
| Address | | | | | |
| City | NA | NA | city | NA | NA |
| State | NA | NA | StatePro | NA | NA |
| | | | v | | |
| Postal | NA | NA | PostalCo | NA | NA |
| Code | | | de | | |
| Phone | phone | phone | phone | phone | phone |
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| Fax Number | fax-no | fax-no | NA | NA | fax-no |
| ID of admi | admin-c | admin-c | NA | owner-c | admin-c |
| nistrative | | | | | (multipl |
| contact | | | | | e) |
| ID of | tech-c | tech-c | NA | tech-c | tech-c ( |
| technical | | | | | multiple |
| contact | | | | | ) |
| Reference | mnt-ref | NA | NA | NA | mnt-ref |
| of | | | | | |
| maintainer | | | | | |
| Reference | mnt-by | mnt-by | NA | NA | mnt-by |
| of | | | | | |
| maintainer | | | | | |
| Remarks | remarks | remarks | NA | NA | remarks |
| Date of | NA | NA | RegDate | created | NA |
| record | | | | | |
| creation | | | | | |
| Date of | NA | changed | Updated | changed | NA |
| record | | (multipl | | | |
| changed | | e) | | | |
| List of | NA | NA | NA | list of | NA |
| resources | | | | resource | |
| | | | | s | |
| Source | source | source | NA | NA | source |
| Reference | NA | NA | Ref | NA | NA |
+------------+----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+
WHOIS Data of Organizations Holding a Resource
4.2. WHOIS Data of Contact
The following table shows the contact objects of 5 RIRs.
+--------------+---------+---------+------------+---------+---------+
| RIR Objects | AFRINIC | APNIC | ARIN | LACNIC | RIPE |
| | | | | | NCC |
+--------------+---------+---------+------------+---------+---------+
| Name | person | person | Name | person | person |
| Company | NA | NA | Company | NA | NA |
| Postal | address | address | Address | address | address |
| Address | | | | | |
| City | NA | NA | City | NA | NA |
| State | NA | NA | StateProv | NA | NA |
| Postal Code | NA | NA | PostalCode | NA | NA |
| Country | NA | country | Country | country | NA |
| Phone | phone | phone | Phone | phone | phone |
| Fax Number | fax-no | fax-no | NA | NA | fax-no |
| Email | e-mail | e-mail | Email | e-mail | NA |
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| ID | nic-hdl | nic-hdl | Handle | nic-hdl | nic-hdl |
| Remarks | NA | remarks | NA | NA | remarks |
| Notify | NA | notify | NA | NA | NA |
| ID of | mnt-by | mnt-by | NA | NA | mnt-by |
| maintainer | | | | | |
| Registration | NA | NA | RegDate | created | NA |
| Date | | | | | |
| Registration | NA | changed | Updated | changed | NA |
| update | | | | | |
| Source | source | source | NA | NA | source |
| Reference | NA | NA | Ref | NA | NA |
+--------------+---------+---------+------------+---------+---------+
WHOIS Data of Contact
4.3. WHOIS Data of IP
The following table shows the IP address objects of 5 RIRs.
+----------+------------+------------+----------+------+------------+
| RIR | AFRINIC | APNIC | ARIN | LACN | RIPE NCC |
| Objects | | | | IC | |
+----------+------------+------------+----------+------+------------+
| IP | inetnum | inetnum | NetRange | NA | inetnum |
| address | | | | | |
| range | | | | | |
| IPV6 | inet6num/i | inet6num/i | CIDR | inet | inet6num/i |
| address | netnum | netnum | | num | netnum |
| range | | | | | |
| Descript | descr | descr | NA | NA | descr |
| ion | | | | | |
| Remarks | NA | NA | NA | NA | remarks |
| Origin | NA | origin (on | OriginAS | Orig | origin (on |
| AS | | route/6) | | inAS | route/6) |
| | | | | (fut | |
| | | | | ure) | |
| Network | netname | netname | NetName | inet | netname |
| name/ID | | | NetHandl | rev | |
| | | | e | | |
| Maintain | NA | mnt-irt | NA | NA | NA |
| er | | | | | |
| Maintain | mnt-ref | NA | NA | NA | NA |
| er | | | | | |
| Administ | admin-c | admin-c | OrgId | owne | admin-c |
| rative | | | | rid | |
| contact | | | | | |
| Parent | parent | NA | Parent | NA | NA |
| range | | | | | |
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| Status | status | status | NetType | stat | status |
| | | | | us | |
| Registra | NA | NA | RegDate | crea | NA |
| tion | | | | ted | |
| Date | | | | | |
| Registra | NA | changed | Updated | chan | NA |
| tion | | (multiple) | | ged | |
| update | | | | | |
| Referenc | NA | NA | Ref | NA | NA |
| e | | | | | |
| ID organ | org | NA | OrgId | owne | organisati |
| ization | | | | r | on |
| holding | | | | | |
| the | | | | | |
| resource | | | | | |
| Referral | NA | NA | Referral | NA | NA |
| server | | | Server | | |
| Technica | tech-c | tech-c | OrgTechH | tech | tech-c |
| l | | | andle | -c | (multiple) |
| contact | | | | | |
| Abuse | NA | NA | OrgAbuse | abus | abuse- |
| contact | | | Handle | e-c | mailbox |
| Referral | NA | NA | RTechHan | NA | NA |
| technica | | | dle | | |
| l | | | | | |
| contact | | | | | |
| Referral | NA | NA | RAbuseHa | NA | NA |
| abuse | | | ndle | | |
| contact | | | | | |
| Referral | NA | NA | RNOCHand | NA | NA |
| NOC | | | le | | |
| contact | | | | | |
| Name | NA | NA | NA | nser | NA |
| server | | | | ver | |
+----------+------------+------------+----------+------+------------+
WHOIS Data of IP
4.4. WHOIS Data of ASN
+------------+----------+----------+------------+--------+----------+
| RIR | AFRINIC | APNIC | ARIN | LACNIC | RIPE NCC |
| Objects | | | | | |
+------------+----------+----------+------------+--------+----------+
| Descriptio | descr | descr | NA | NA | descr |
| n | | | | | |
| Organizati | organisa | NA | OrgId | owner | org |
| on | tion | | | | |
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| Comment | NA | NA | Comment | NA | remarks |
| Administra | admin-c | admin-c | ASHandle | owner- | admin-c |
| tive | | | | id | |
| contact ID | | | | | |
| Technical | tech-c | tech-c | OrgTechHan | routin | tech-c ( |
| contact ID | | | dle | g-c | multiple |
| | | | | | ) |
| Organizati | NA | nic-hdl | NA | owner- | organisa |
| on ID | | | | c | tion |
| Notify | NA | notify | NA | NA | NA |
| Abuse | NA | NA | OrgAbuseHa | abuse- | NA |
| contact | | | ndle | c | |
| Maintainer | mnt-by | mnt-by | NA | NA | mnt-by |
| Maintainer | mnt- | NA | NA | NA | mnt- |
| | lower | | | | lower |
| Maintainer | NA | NA | NA | NA | mnt-ref |
| Registrati | NA | NA | RegDate | create | NA |
| on Date | | | | d | |
| Registrati | NA | changed | Updated | change | NA |
| on update | | (multipl | | d | |
| | | e) | | | |
| Source | source | source | NA | NA | source |
+------------+----------+----------+------------+--------+----------+
WHOIS Data of ASN
4.5. Conclusion
As it can be observed, for each object (Organization, Contact Person,
Net-num and ASN) there are fields that are unique to only one or a
set of RIRs and there are fields that have the same meaning but are
referred different for each RIR. In order to construct a single data
model for each object a selection of the most common and useful
fields was made. That initial selection was the starting point of
the previous document of [I-D.ietf-weirds-json-response].
5. DNR Objects Analysis
5.1. Overview
WHOIS data is collected from 124 registries, including 106 ccTLDs and
18 gTLDs. All the 124 registries support domain query. Among 124
registries, 8 ccTLDs and 15 gTLDs support contact query. 10 ccTLDs
and 18 gTLDs support name server query. 4 ccTLDs and 18 gTLDs
support registrar query. Domain WHOIS data contains 68 data elements
that use a total of 550 labels. There are total 392 other objects
for Domain WHOIS data. The raw data can be accessed with the
following link: WHOIS Statistics Data File [Stat-Data-File]
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5.2. Public Objects
As mentioned above, public objects are those data elements selected
according to new gTLD application guide book, [RFC5730], [RFC5731],
[RFC5732] and [RFC5733]. They are generally classified into four
categories: domain, contact, nameserver and registrar related
information.
5.2.1. WHOIS Data of Domain
WHOIS data of domain includes "Domain Name", "Creation Date", "Domain
Status", "Expiration Date", "Updated Date", "Domain ID", "DNSSEC" and
"Last Transferred Date". The following table gives the element name,
most popular label and corresponding numbers of TLDs and labels.
+---------------------+---------------------+----------+------------+
| Data Element | Most Popular Label | No. of | No. of |
| | | TLDs | Labels |
+---------------------+---------------------+----------+------------+
| Domain Name | Domain Name | 118 | 6 |
| Creation Date | Created | 106 | 24 |
| Domain Status | Status | 95 | 8 |
| Expiration Date | Expiration Date | 81 | 21 |
| Updated Date | Modified | 70 | 20 |
| Domain ID | Domain ID | 34 | 5 |
| DNSSEC | DNSSEC | 14 | 4 |
| Last Transferred | Last Transferred | 4 | 3 |
| Date | Date | | |
+---------------------+---------------------+----------+------------+
WHOIS Data of Domain
Analyzing the above data, about 95.16% of the 124 registries support
"Domain Name" data element; 85.48% of the 124 registries support
"Creation Date" data element; 76.61% of the 124 registries support
"Domain Status" data element. On the other hand, some elements such
as "DNSSEC" and "Last Transferred Date" are only supported by 11.29%
and 3.23% of all the registries seperately.
5.2.2. WHOIS Data of Contact
In domain name space, contacts are typically divided into registrant,
administrative contact, technical contact and billing contact.
5.2.2.1. Registrant
The following table shows all the contact information of registrant.
14 data elements are listed below.
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+----------------------+----------------------+--------+------------+
| Data Element | Most Popular Label | No. of | No. of |
| | | TLDs | Labels |
+----------------------+----------------------+--------+------------+
| Registrant Name | Name | 65 | 7 |
| Registrant Email | Registrant Email | 59 | 7 |
| Registrant ID | Registrant ID | 50 | 12 |
| Registrant Phone | Registrant Phone | 48 | 6 |
| Registrant Fax | Registrant Fax | 44 | 6 |
| Registrant | Registrant | 42 | 4 |
| Organization | Organization | | |
| Registrant Country | Country | 42 | 6 |
| Code | | | |
| Registrant City | Registrant City | 38 | 4 |
| Registrant Postal | Registrant Postal | 37 | 5 |
| Code | Code | | |
| Registrant | Registrant | 32 | 4 |
| State/Province | State/Province | | |
| Registrant Street | Registrant Street1 | 31 | 16 |
| Registrant Country | Registrant Country | 19 | 4 |
| Registrant Phone | Registrant Phone | 18 | 2 |
| Ext. | Ext. | | |
| Registrant Fax Ext | Registrant Fax Ext | 17 | 2 |
+----------------------+----------------------+--------+------------+
Registrant
Among all the data elements, "Registrant Name", "Registrant Email"
and "Registrant ID" are the top 3 data elements.
5.2.2.2. Admin Contact
The following table shows all the contact information of
administrative contact. 14 data elements are listed below.
+----------------------+----------------------+---------+-----------+
| Data Element | Most Popular Label | No. of | No. of |
| | | TLDs | Labels |
+----------------------+----------------------+---------+-----------+
| Admin Street | Address | 64 | 19 |
| Admin Name | Admin Name | 60 | 9 |
| Admin Email | Admin Email | 54 | 12 |
| Admin ID | Admin ID | 52 | 16 |
| Admin Fax | Admin Fax | 44 | 8 |
| Admin Phone | Admin Phone | 43 | 9 |
| Admin Organization | Admin Organization | 42 | 9 |
| Admin Country Code | Country | 42 | 7 |
| Admin City | Admin City | 35 | 5 |
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| Admin Postal Code | Admin Postal Code | 35 | 7 |
| Admin State/Province | Admin State/Province | 28 | 5 |
| Admin Country | Admin Country | 17 | 5 |
| Admin Phone Ext. | Admin Phone Ext. | 17 | 3 |
| Admin Fax Ext. | Admin Fax Ext. | 17 | 3 |
+----------------------+----------------------+---------+-----------+
Admin Contact
Among all the data elements, "Admin Street", "Admin Name" and "Admin
Email" are the top 3 data elements.
5.2.2.3. Tech Contact
The following table shows all the information about domain name
technical contact. 14 data elements are listed below.
+----------------------+----------------------+---------+-----------+
| Data Element | Most Popular Label | No. of | No. of |
| | | TLDs | Labels |
+----------------------+----------------------+---------+-----------+
| Tech Email | Tech Email | 59 | 9 |
| Tech ID | Tech ID | 55 | 16 |
| Tech Name | Tech Name | 47 | 6 |
| Tech Fax | Tech Fax | 45 | 9 |
| Tech Phone | Tech Phone | 45 | 10 |
| Tech Country Code | Country | 43 | 9 |
| Tech Organization | Tech Organization | 39 | 7 |
| Tech City | Tech City | 36 | 4 |
| Tech Postal Code | Tech Postal Code | 36 | 7 |
| Tech State/Province | Tech State/Province | 30 | 4 |
| Tech Street | Tech Street1 | 27 | 16 |
| Tech Country | Tech Country | 18 | 5 |
| Tech Fax Ext | Tech Fax Ext | 18 | 3 |
| Tech Phone Ext. | Tech Phone Ext. | 13 | 3 |
+----------------------+----------------------+---------+-----------+
Tech Contact
Among all the data elements, "Tech Email", "Tech ID" and "Tech Name"
are the top 3 data elements.
5.2.2.4. Billing Contact
The following table shows all the information about domain name
billing contact. 14 data elements are listed below.
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+----------------------+----------------------+--------+------------+
| Data Element | Most Popular Label | No. of | No. of |
| | | TLDs | Labels |
+----------------------+----------------------+--------+------------+
| Billing Name | Name | 47 | 5 |
| Billing Fax | Fax | 43 | 6 |
| Billing Email | Email Address | 42 | 7 |
| Billing Country Code | Country | 38 | 4 |
| Billing Phone | Phone Number | 34 | 6 |
| Billing ID | Billing ID | 28 | 9 |
| Billing City | Billing City | 28 | 4 |
| Billing Organization | Billing Organization | 28 | 5 |
| Billing Postal Code | Billing Postal Code | 27 | 4 |
| Billing | Billing | 21 | 4 |
| State/Province | State/Province | | |
| Billing Street | Billing Street1 | 19 | 13 |
| Billing Country | Billing Country | 13 | 5 |
| Billing Phone Ext. | Billing Phone Ext. | 10 | 2 |
| Billing Fax Ext | Billing Fax Ext | 10 | 2 |
+----------------------+----------------------+--------+------------+
Billing Contact
Among all the data elements, "Billing Name", "Tech Fax" and "Billing
Email" are the top 3 data elements.
5.2.3. WHOIS Data of Nameserver
114 registries (about 92% of all the 124 registries) have the
nameserver data element in their WHOIS response. But there are 63
different labels for this element. Top 3 labels for this element are
Name Server which is supported by 25% of all the registries, Name
Servers which is supported by 16% of all the registries and nserver
which is supported by 12% of all the registries.
+--------------+--------------------+-------------+---------------+
| Data Element | Most Popular Label | No. of TLDs | No. of Labels |
+--------------+--------------------+-------------+---------------+
| NameServer | NameServer | 114 | 63 |
+--------------+--------------------+-------------+---------------+
WHOIS Data of Nameserver
Some registries have nameserver elements such like "nameserver 1",
"nameserver 2" till "nameserver n". So there are more labels than of
other data elements.
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5.2.4. WHOIS Data of Registrar
There are three data elements about registrar information.
+--------------------+---------------------+----------+-------------+
| Data Element | Most Popular Label | No. of | No. of |
| | | TLDs | Labels |
+--------------------+---------------------+----------+-------------+
| Sponsoring | Registrar | 84 | 6 |
| Registrar | | | |
| Created by | Created by | 14 | 3 |
| Registrar | | | |
| Updated by | Last Updated by | 11 | 3 |
| Registrar | Registrar | | |
+--------------------+---------------------+----------+-------------+
WHOIS Data of Registrar
67.7% of the registries have sponsoring registrar data element.
Elements such as "Created by Registrar" and "Updated by Registrar"
are supported by 11.3% and 8.9% of the registries.
5.3. Other Objects
So called other objects are those data elements that are self-
designed or are difficult to be classified. There are 392 other
objects altogether. The following tables lists the top 50 other
objects according to the data collection result.
+----------------------------------------+-------------+
| Data Element | No. of TLDs |
+----------------------------------------+-------------+
| Registrant | 41 |
| Phone | 32 |
| Technical contact | 26 |
| Administrative contact | 15 |
| source | 14 |
| fax-no | 13 |
| nic-hdl | 13 |
| Billing Contact | 12 |
| referral url | 11 |
| e-mail | 10 |
| WHOIS server | 9 |
| Admin Contact | 9 |
| Type | 9 |
| Website | 9 |
| zone-c | 8 |
| remarks | 7 |
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| Registration URL | 6 |
| anonymous | 6 |
| anniversary | 6 |
| hold | 6 |
| nsl-id | 6 |
| obsoleted | 6 |
| Customer Service Contact | 5 |
| Customer Service Email | 4 |
| Registrar ID | 4 |
| org | 4 |
| person | 4 |
| Maintainer | 4 |
| Nombre | 3 |
| Sponsoring Registrar IANA ID | 3 |
| Trademark Number | 3 |
| Trademark Country | 3 |
| descr | 3 |
| url | 3 |
| Postal address | 3 |
| Registrar URL | 3 |
| International Name | 3 |
| International Address | 3 |
| Admin Contacts | 2 |
| Contractual Language | 2 |
| Date Trademark Registered | 2 |
| Date Trademark Applied For | 2 |
| IP Address | 2 |
| Keys | 2 |
| Language | 2 |
| NIC handle | 2 |
| Record maintained by | 2 |
| Registration Service Provider | 2 |
| Registration Service Provided By | 2 |
| Registrar URL (registration services) | 2 |
+----------------------------------------+-------------+
Top 50 Other Objects
Some elements like "Registrant" are difficult to be classified into
any categories. A few registries have two levels of data elements,
for example:
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Registrant:
Name:
Email:
...
We do not think the first level of elements belong to any part. So
they are put into the scope of other objects.
Some other data elements, like "Remarks", "anniversary" and "Customer
service Contact" etc., are designed particularly for their own
purpose by different registries.
5.4. Conclusion
5.4.1. Preliminary Statistics
Some preliminary statistics conclusion could be drawn from the raw
data.
o All of the 124 domain registries have the object names in their
responses although they are in various formats.
o Of the 118 whois services contacted, 65 registries show their
registrant contact. About half of the registries (60 registries)
support admin contact information. There are 47 registries, that
is about one third of the total number, have technical and billing
contact information. And only 7 of all the 124 registries give
their abuse email in remarks part. No explicit abuse contact
information is provided.
o There are mainly two presentation formats. One is key:value, the
other is data block format. Example of key-value format:
Domain Information
Query: na-nic.com.na
Status: Delegated
Created: 17 Apr 2004
Modified: 14 Nov 2010
Expires: 31 Dec 9999
Name Servers: oshikoko.omadhina.net
ns1.na.afrisp.net
ns2.na.afrisp.net
...
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Example of data block format:
Whois database
domain nic.vg
Domain Name nic.vg
Registered 1998-09-02
Expiry 2012-09-02
Resource Records
a 195.153.6.27
mx 10 terpsichore.william.org
www a 195.153.6.27
Contact details
Registrant,
Technical Contact,
Billing Contact,
Admin. Contact AdamsNames Reserved Domains (i)
These domains are not available for registration
United Kingdom
Identifier: neams048s
Servidor Whois de NIC-Venezuela (.VE)
Este servidor contiene informacion autoritativa exclusivamente
de dominios .VE Cualquier consulta sobre este servicio, puede
hacerla al correo electronico whois@nic.ve
Titular:
Jhonny Valera (nic.ve-dom) jhovalera@conatel.gob.ve
Comision Nacional de Telecomunicaciones
Av. Veracruz con calle Cali, Edif Aguila, Urb. Las Mercedes
Caracas, Distrito Capital VE
0212-9090493 (FAX) +582127718599
o 11 registries give local script responses. The WHOIS information
of other registries are all represented in English.
5.4.2. Data Elements Analysis
Top 10 data elements are as follows:
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+----------------------+-------------+
| Data Element | No. of TLDs |
+----------------------+-------------+
| Domain Name | 118 |
| Name Server | 114 |
| Creation Date | 106 |
| Domain Status | 95 |
| Sponsoring Registrar | 84 |
| Expiration Date | 81 |
| Updated Date | 70 |
| Registrant Name | 65 |
| Admin Street | 64 |
| Admin Name | 60 |
+----------------------+-------------+
Top 10 Data Elements
Most of the domain related WHOIS information is included in the top
10 data elements. Other information like name server and registrar
name are also supported by most registries.
We did a cumulative distribution analysis of all the data elements.
(1) About 5% of data elements are supported by over 111 (90%)
registries.
(2) About 30% of data elements are supported by over 44 (35%)
registries.
(3) About 60% of data elements are supported by over 32 (26%)
registries.
(4) About 90% of data elements are supported by over 14 (11%)
registries.
From the above result, we can conclude that only a few registries
support all the public objects, most of the registries support just
parts of all the objects.
5.4.3. Labels Analysis
The top 10 labels of different data elements include:
+-------------------+---------------+
| Labels | No. of Labels |
+-------------------+---------------+
| Name Server | 63 |
| Creation Date | 24 |
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| Expiration Date | 21 |
| Updated Date | 20 |
| Admin Street | 19 |
| Tech ID | 18 |
| Registrant Street | 16 |
| Admin ID | 16 |
| Tech Street | 16 |
| Billing Street | 13 |
+-------------------+---------------+
Top 10 Labels
As explained above, name server label is a unique example that many
registries define the name server elements from "nameserver 1" till
"nameserver n". So label numbers of name server are much more than
other elements. Other elements about date, street name have more
labels.
A cumulative distribution analysis of label numbers was done. About
90% of data elements have more than 2 Labels. So it is very
necessary to specify a standard and unified format for object names
of WHOIS response.
5.4.4. Other Objects Analysis
According to statistics result, there are 392 other data objects in
total that are not easy to be classified or privately owned by
various registries. Top 50 other objects are listed in the table in
section 4.3. You can find that various different objects are
designed for some particular purpose. So in order to ensure
uniqueness of JSON names used in the Restful Whois service,
establishing an IANA registry is a necessary requirement.
5.5. Limitation
o The input "nic.ccTLD" maybe is not a good choice.
o The classification of local script data elements may not be
accurate. 11 registries give local script responses.
o The extension data elements are used randomly by different
registries. It is difficult to do statistical analysis.
o Sample sizes of contact, name server and registrar queries are
small.
* We only use "Whois contactID/nameserver/registrar" as the query
commands to check.
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* Some registries may not support contact, name server or
registrar queries.
* Some may not support query contact by ID.
* Contact information of some registries may be protected.
6. IANA Considerations
This document does not specify any IANA actions.
7. Security considerations
This document does not provide any other security services or
introduce any additional considerations.
8. Acknowledgements
This document has been reviewed and improved by the design team. The
authors especially thank the following individuals who gave their
suggestions and contributions to this document: Guangqing Deng,
Frederico A C Neves and Ray Bellis.
9. Normative References
[I-D.ietf-weirds-json-response]
Newton, A. and S. Hollenbeck, "JSON Responses for the
Registration Data Access Protocol (RDAP)", draft-ietf-
weirds-json-response-06 (work in progress), October 2013.
[RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.
[RFC2622] Alaettinoglu, C., Villamizar, C., Gerich, E., Kessens, D.,
Meyer, D., Bates, T., Karrenberg, D., and M. Terpstra,
"Routing Policy Specification Language (RPSL)", RFC 2622,
June 1999.
[RFC3912] Daigle, L., "WHOIS Protocol Specification", RFC 3912,
September 2004.
[RFC5730] Hollenbeck, S., "Extensible Provisioning Protocol (EPP)",
STD 69, RFC 5730, August 2009.
[RFC5731] Hollenbeck, S., "Extensible Provisioning Protocol (EPP)
Domain Name Mapping", STD 69, RFC 5731, August 2009.
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[RFC5732] Hollenbeck, S., "Extensible Provisioning Protocol (EPP)
Host Mapping", STD 69, RFC 5732, August 2009.
[RFC5733] Hollenbeck, S., "Extensible Provisioning Protocol (EPP)
Contact Mapping", STD 69, RFC 5733, August 2009.
[RFC5890] Klensin, J., "Internationalized Domain Names for
Applications (IDNA): Definitions and Document Framework",
RFC 5890, August 2010.
[Stat-Data-File]
Kong, N., Zhou, L., and G. Deng, "WHOIS Statistics Data
File ", July 2012, <https://docs.google.com/
open?id=0B96TtoK8a--MTTRuVUt3UHZMdEk>.
Appendix A. Change Log
Initial -00: Adopted as working group document.
-01:
* Added Change Log section.
* Added RIR data objects.
* Exchanged section 2 and section 3.
Authors' Addresses
Linlin Zhou
CNNIC
4 South 4th Street, Zhongguancun, Haidian District
Beijing, Beijing 100190
China
Phone: +86 10 5881 2677
Email: zhoulinlin@cnnic.cn
Ning Kong
CNNIC
4 South 4th Street, Zhongguancun, Haidian District
Beijing, Beijing 100190
China
Phone: +86 10 5881 3147
Email: nkong@cnnic.cn
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Sean Shen
CNNIC
4 South 4th Street, Zhongguancun, Haidian District
Beijing, Beijing 100190
China
Phone: +86 10 5881 3038
Email: shenshuo@cnnic.cn
Steve Sheng
ICANN
4676 Admiralty Way, Suite 330
Marina del Rey, CA 90292
United States of America
Phone: +1.310.823.9358
Email: steve.sheng@icann.org
Arturo Servin
LACNIC
Rambla Mexico 6125
Montevideo, Montevideo 11400
Uruguay
Phone: +598-2604-2222
Email: aservin@lacnic.net
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