RFC1480 - The US Domain

Network Working Group A. Cooper

Request for Comments: 1480 J. Postel

Obsoletes: 1386 June 1993

The US Domain

Status of this Memo

This memo provides information for the Internet community. It does

not specify an Internet standard. Distribution of this memo is

unlimited.

Table of Contents

1. IntrodUCtion ................................................ 2

1.1 The Internet Domain Name System......................... 2

1.2 Top-Level Domains....................................... 3

1.3 The US Domain .......................................... 4

2. Naming Structure ............................................ 4

2.1 State Codes ............................................ 8

2.2 Locality Names.......................................... 8

2.3 Schools ................................................ 10

2.4 State Agencies.......................................... 15

2.5 Federal Agencies ....................................... 15

2.6 Distributed National Institutes......................... 15

2.7 General Independent Entities............................ 16

2.8 Examples of Names....................................... 17

3. Registration ................................................ 20

3.1 Requirements ........................................... 20

3.2 Direct Entries ......................................... 21

3.2.1 IP-Hosts............................................. 21

3.2.2 Non-IP Hosts ........................................ 21

3.3 Delegated Subdomains ................................... 24

3.3.1 Delegation Requirement............................... 26

3.3.2 Delegation Procedures ............................... 28

3.3.3 Subdomain Contacts................................... 29

4. Database Information......................................... 30

4.1 Name Servers ........................................... 30

4.2 Zone files ............................................. 30

4.3 Resource Records ....................................... 31

4.3.1 "A" Records ......................................... 32

4.3.2 CNAME Records ....................................... 32

4.3.3 MX Records .......................................... 33

4.3.4 HINFO Records ....................................... 33

4.3.5 PTR Records ......................................... 33

4.4 Wildcards .............................................. 34

5. References .................................................. 35

6. Security Considerations ..................................... 35

7. Authors' Addresses .......................................... 36

Appendix-I: US Domain Names BNF................................. 37

Appendix-II: US Domain Questionnaire ............................ 42

1. INTRODUCTION

1.1 The Internet Domain Name System

The Domain Name System (DNS) provides for the translation between

hostnames and addresses. Within the Internet, this means translating

from a name such as "venera.isi.edu", to an IP address such as

"128.9.0.32". The DNS is a set of protocols and databases. The

protocols define the syntax and semantics for a query language to ask

questions about information located by DNS-style names. The

databases are distributed and replicated. There is no dependence on

a single central server, and each part of the database is provided in

at least two servers.

The assignment of the 32-bit IP addresses is a separate activity. IP

addresses are delegated by the central Internet Registry to regional

authorities (such as the RIPE NCC for Europe) and the network

providers.

To have a network number assigned please contact your network service

provider or regional registration authority. To determine who this

is (or as a last resort), you can contact the central Internet

Registry at Hostmaster@INTERNIC.NET.

In addition to translating names to addresses for hosts that are on

the Internet, the DNS provides for registering DNS-style names for

other hosts reachable (via electronic mail) through gateways or mail

relays. The records for such name registrations point to an Internet

host (one with an IP address) that acts as a mail forwarder for the

registered host. For example, the host "bah.rochester.ny.us" is

registered in the DNS with a pointer to the mail relay

"relay1.uu.net". This type of pointer is called an MX record.

This gives electronic mail users a uniform mail addressing syntax and

avoids making users aware of the underlying network boundaries.

The reason for the development of the domain system was growth in the

Internet. The hostname to address mappings were maintained by the

InterNIC in a single file, called HOSTS.TXT, which was FTP'd by all

the hosts on the Internet. The network population was changing in

character. The time-share hosts that made up the original ARPANET

were being replaced with local networks of workstations. Local

organizations were administering their own names and addresses, but

had to wait for the NIC to make changes in HOSTS.TXT to make the

changes visible to the Internet at large. Organizations also wanted

some local structure on the name space. The applications on the

Internet were getting more sophisticated and creating a need for

general purpose name service. The idea of a hierarchical name space,

with the hierarchy roughly corresponding to organizational structure,

and names using "." as the character to mark the boundary between

hierarchy levels was developed. A design using a distributed

database and generalized resources was implemented.

The DNS provides standard formats for resource data, standard methods

for querying the database, and standard methods for name servers to

refresh local data from other name servers.

1.2 Top-Level Domains

The top-level domains in the DNS are EDU, COM, GOV, MIL, ORG, INT,

and NET, and all the 2-letter country codes from the list of

countries in ISO-3166. The establishment of new top-level domains is

managed by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA). The IANA

may be contacted at IANA@ISI.EDU.

Even though the original intention was that any educational

institution anywhere in the world could be registered under the EDU

domain, in practice, it has turned out with few exceptions, only

those in the United States have registered under EDU, similarly with

COM (for commercial). In other countries, everything is registered

under the 2-letter country code, often with some subdivision. For

example, in Korea (KR) the second level names are AC for academic

community, CO for commercial, GO for government, and RE for research.

However, each country may go its own way about organizing its domain,

and many have.

There are no current plans of putting all of the organizational

domains EDU, GOV, COM, etc., under US. These name tokens are not

used in the US Domain to avoid confusion.

Currently, only four year colleges and universities are being

registered in the EDU domain. All other schools are being registered

in the US Domain.

There are also concerns about the size of the other top-level domains

(especially COM) and ideas are being considered for restructuring.

Other names sometimes appear as top-level domain names. Some people

have made up names in the DNS-style without coordinating or

registering with the DNS management. Some names that typically

appear are BITNET, UUCP, and two-letter codes for continents, such as

"NA" for North America (this conflicts with the official Internet

code for Namibia).

For example, the DNS-style name "KA7EEJ.CO.USA.NA" is used in the

amateur radio network. These addresses are never supposed to show up

on the Internet but they do occasionally. The amateur radio network

people created their own naming scheme, and it interferes sometimes

with Internet addresses.

1.3 The US Domain

The US Domain is an official top-level domain in the DNS of the

Internet community. The domain administrators are Jon Postel and Ann

Westine Cooper at the Information Sciences Institute of the

University of Southern California (USC-ISI).

US is the ISO-3166 2-letter country code for the United States and

thus the US Domain is established as a top-level domain and

registered with the InterNIC the same way other country domains are.

Because organizations in the United States have registered primarily

in the EDU and COM domains, little use was initially made of the US

domain. In the past, the computers registered in the US Domain were

primarily owned by small companies or individuals with computers at

home. However, the US Domain has grown and currently registers hosts

in federal government agencies, state government agencies, K12

schools, community colleges, technical/vocational schools, private

schools, libraries, city and county government agencies, to name a

few.

Initially, the administration of the US Domain was managed solely by

the Domain Registrar. However, due to the increase in registrations,

administration of subdomains is being delegated to others.

Any computer in the United States may be registered in the US Domain.

2. NAMING STRUCTURE

The US Domain hierarchy is based on political geography. The basic

name space under US is the state name space, then the "locality" name

space, (like a city, or county) then organization or computer name

and so on.

For example:

BERKELEY.CA.US

PORTLAND.WA.US

There is of course no problem with running out of names.

The things that are named are individual computers.

If you register now in one city and then move, the database can be

updated with a new name in your new city, and a pointer can be set up

from your old name to your new name. This type of pointer is called

a CNAME record.

The use of unregistered names is not effective and causes problems

for other users. Inventing your own name and using it without

registering is not a good idea.

In addition to strictly geographically names, some special names are

used, such as FED, STATE, AGENCY, DISTRICT, K12, LIB, CC, CITY, and

COUNTY. Several new name spaces have been created, DNI, GEN, and

TEC, and a minor change under the "locality" name space was made to

the existing CITY and COUNTY subdomains by abbreviating them to CI

and CO. A detailed description follows.

Below US, Parallel to States:

-----------------------------

"FED" - This branch may be used for agencies of the federal

government. For example: <org-name>.<city>.FED.US

"DNI" - DISTRIBUTED NATIONAL INSTITUTES - The "DNI" branch was

created directly under the top-level US. This branch is to be used

for distributed national institutes; organizations that span state,

regional, and other organizational boundaries; that are national in

scope, and have distributed facilities. For example:

<org-name>.DNI.US.

Name Space Within States:

------------------------

"locality" - cities, counties, parishes, and townships. Subdomains

under the "locality" would be like CI.<city>.<state>.US,

CO.<county>.<state>.US, or businesses. For example:

Petville.MarVista.CA.US.

"CI" - This branch is used for city government agencies and is a

subdomain under the "locality" name (like Los Angeles). For example:

Fire-Dept.CI.Los-Angeles.CA.US.

"CO" - This branch is used for county government agencies and is a

subdomain under the "locality" name (like Los Angeles). For example:

Fire-Dept.CO.San-Diego.CA.US.

"K12" - This branch may be used for public school districts. A

special name "PVT" can be used in the place of a school district name

for private schools. For example: <school-name>.K12.<state>.US and

<school-name>.PVT.K12.<state>.US.

"CC" - COMMUNITY COLLEGES - This branch was established for all state

wide community colleges. For example: <school-name>.CC.<state>.US.

"TEC" - TECHNICAL AND VOCATIONAL SCHOOLS - The branch "TEC" was

established for technical and vocational schools and colleges. For

example: <school-name>.TEC.<state>.US.

"LIB" - LIBRARIES (STATE, REGIONAL, CITY, COUNTY) - This branch may

be used for libraries only. For example: <lib-name>.LIB.<state>.US.

"STATE" - This branch may be used for state government agencies. For

example: <org-name>.STATE.<state>.US.

"GEN" - GENERAL INDEPENDENT ENTITY - This branch is for the things

that don't fit easily into any other structure listed -- things that

might fit in to something like ORG at the top-level. It is best not

to use the same keyWords (ORG, EDU, COM, etc.) that are used at the

top-level to avoid confusion. GEN would be used for such things as,

state-wide organizations, clubs, or domain parks. For example:

<org-name>.GEN.<state-code>.US.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

VIEW OF SECOND LEVEL DOMAINS UNDER US

+-------+

US

+-------+

+----------------------------------+

+-----+ +-----+ +-----+ +-----+ +-----+

FED DNI TX SD CA

+-----+ +-----+ +-----+ +-----+ +-----+

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

SCHOOL AND LIBRARY VIEW

+-----+

CA

+-----+

+------------------------------------------------+

+-----+ +-----+ +-----+ +-------------+ +-----+

K12 CC TEC LOS ANGELES LIB

+-----+ +-----+ +-----+ +-------------+ +-----+

/ \ /\ /\ /\ / +--------+ +---+ +---+ +--------+ +----------+ +------+

sch dist PVT SJC WM TRADE pvt school MALIBU

+--------+ +---+ +---+ +--------+ +----------+ +------+

/\ / +--------+ +--------+

sch name sch name

+--------+ +--------+

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

VIEW OF STATE, REGIONAL, and GENERAL AGENCIES

+-----+

CA

+-----+

+-------------------------+

+-------+ +--------+ +-----+

STATE DISTRICT GEN

+-------+ +--------+ +-----+

/\ /\ / +--------+ +------+ +---------+

CALTRANS SCAQMD domain pk

---------+ +------+ +---------+

+--------+

TCEW100E

+--------+

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

VIEW OF LOCALITY

+-----+

CA

+-----+

+-----------------------------------+

+-------------------------+ +----------------+

LOS ANGELES SANTA MONICA

+-------------------------+ +----------------+

/ /\ / /

+---+ +--+ +--+ +-----------+ +--+ +---+

bus CI CO pvt school CI bus

+---+ +--+ +--+ +-----------+ +--+ +---+

/\

/ \ +------------+

/ \ HARBOR GUARD

/ \ +------------+

+-----+ +-----+ +-----+ +----+

FIRE ADMIN PARKS FIRE

+-----+ +-----+ +-----+ +----+

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

2.1 State Codes

The state codes are the two letter US Postal abbreviations. For

example: "CA" California.

2.2 Locality Names

Within the state name space there are "locality" names, some may be

cities, some may be counties, some may be local names, but not

incorporated entities.

Registered names under "locality" could be like:

<hostname>.CI.<locality>.<state>.US ==> city gov't agency

<hostname>.CO.<locality>.<state>.US, ==> county gov't agency

<hostname>.<locality>.<state>.US ==> businesses

In the cases where the locality name is a county, there is a branch

under the locality name, called "county" or "CO", that is used by the

county government. Businesses are registered directly under the

locality name.

Under the city locality name space there is a "city" or "CI" branch

for city government agencies. As usual, businesses and private

schools may register directly under the city name.

In the case where there is both a county and a city with the same

locality name there is no problem, since the names will be unique

with the "CO" or "CI" keyword. In our area the county has a fire

department and the city has its own fire department. They could have

names like:

Fire-Dept.CI.Los-Angeles.CA.US

Fire-Dept.CO.Los-Angeles.CA.US

Cities may be named (designated) by their full name (spelled out with

hyphens replacing spaces (e.g., Los-Angeles or Fort-Collins), or by a

city code. The first choice is the full city name. In some cases it

may be appropriate to use the well-known city abbreviation known

throughout a locality. However, it is very desirable that all users

in the same city use the same designator for the city. That is, any

particular locality should have just one DNS name.

Some users would like names associated with a greater metropolitan

area or region like the "Bay Area" or "Tri-Cities". One problem with

this is that these names are not necessarily unique within a state.

The best thing to do in this case is to use the larger metropolitan

city in your hostname. Cities and counties are used.

Should all the names be obvious? Trying to do this is desirable and

also impossible. There will come a point when the obviously right

name for an organization is already taken. As the system grows this

will happen with increasing frequency. While ease of use to the end

user is desirable, a higher priority must be placed on having a

system that operates. This means that the manageability of the

system must have high consideration.

The reason the DNS was created was to subdivide the problem of

maintaining a list of hosts in the Internet into manageable portions.

The happy result is that this subdivision makes name uniqueness

easier and promotes logical grouping. What is a "logical grouping"

though, always depends on the viewer.

Many levels of delegation are needed to keep the zone files

manageable. Many sections of the name space are needed to allow

unique names to be easily added.

Way back in the olden days, when the Internet was invented, some

thought that an 8-bit network number would be more than enough to

number all the networks that would ever exist. Today, there are over

10,000 networks operating in the Internet, and arguments are made

about the doubling time being 2 years versus 4 years.

One concern is that things will continue to grow dramatically, and

this will require more subdivision of the domain name management.

Maybe the plan for the US Domain is overkill on growth planning, but

there has never been overplanning for growth yet.

When things are bigger, names have to be longer. There is an

argument that with only 8-character names, and in each position allow

a-z, 0-9, and -, you get 37**8 = 3,512,479,453,921 or 3.5 trillion

possible names. It is a great argument, but how many of us want

names like "xs4gp-7q". It is like license plate numbers, sure some

people get the name they want on a vanity plate, but a lot more

people who want something specific on a vanity plate can't get it

because someone else got it first. Structure and longer names also

let more people get their "obviously right" name.

2.3 Schools

K12 schools are connecting to the Internet and registering in the

Internet DNS. A decision has been made by the IANA (after

consultation with the new InterNIC Internet Registry and the Federal

Networking Council (FNC)) to direct these school registrations to the

US domain using the naming structure described here.

There is a need for competent, eXPerienced, volunteers to come

forward to act as third and perhaps fourth level registries and to

operate delegated portions of the DNS.

There are two reasons for registering schools in the US Domain. (1)

uniqueness of names, and (2) management of the database.

1. Name Uniqueness:

There are many "Washington" high schools, only one can be

"Washington.EDU" (actually none can be, since that name is used

by a University. There will be many name conflicts if all

schools attempt to register directly under EDU.

In addition, in some districts, the same school name is used at

different levels, for example, Washington Elementary School and

Washington High School. We suggest that when necessary, the

keywords "Elementary", "Middle", and "High" be used to

distinguish these schools. These keywords would only be used

when they are needed, if the school's name is unique without

such keywords, don't use them.

2. Database Management:

One goal of the DNS is to divide up the management of the name

database in to small pieces. Each piece (or "zone" in DNS

terminology) could be managed by a distinct administrator.

Adding all the high schools to the EDU domain will make the

already large zone file for EDU even larger, possibly to the

point of being unmanageable.

For both these reasons it is necessary to introduce structure into

names. Structure provides a basis for making common names unique in

context, and for dividing the management responsibility.

The US Domain has a framework established and has registered many

schools already in this structured scheme. The general form is:

<school>.<district>.K12.<state>.US.

For example: Hamilton.LA-Unified.K12.CA.US

Public schools are usually organized by districts which can be larger

or smaller than a city or county. For example, the Portland school

district in Oregon, is in three or four counties. Each of those

counties also has non-Portland districts.

It makes sense to name schools within districts. However districts

often have the same name as a city or county so there has to be a way

to distinguish a public school district name from some other type of

locality name. The keyword "K12" is used for this.

For example, typical K12 school names currently used are:

IVY.PRS.K12.NJ.US

DMHS.JCPS.K12.KY.US

OHS.EUNION.K12.CA.US

BOHS.BREA.K12.CA.US

These names are generally longer than the old alternative of shorter

names in the EDU domain, but that would not have lasted long without

a significant number of schools finding that their "obviously

correct" name has already been used by some other school.

When there are many things to name some of the names will be long.

In some cases there may be appropriate abbreviations that can be

used. For example Hamilton High School in Los Angeles could be:

Hami.Hi.LA.K12.CA.US

If a school has a number of PCs, then each PC should have a name.

Suppose they are named "alpha", "beta", ... then if they belong to a

school named "Lincoln.High.Lakewood.K12.CA.US" their names would be:

alpha.Lincoln.High.Lakewood.K12.CA.US.

beta.Lincoln.High.Lakewood.K12.CA.US

...

The K12 subdomain provides two points at which to delegate a branch

of the database to distinct administrators -- the K12 Administrator

for each state, and the district administrator for each district

within a state.

The US Domain Administrator will delegate a branch of the US domain

to an appropriate party. In some cases, this may be a particular

school, a school district, or ever all of K12 for a state.

The responsibility for managing a K12 branch or sub-branch may be

delegated to an appropriate volunteer. We envision that such

delegations of the schools' DNS service may eventually migrate to

someone else "more appropriate" from an administrative organizational

point of view. The "obvious" state agency to manage the schools' DNS

branch may take some time to get up to speed on Internetting. In the

meantime, we can have the more advanced schools up and running.

Special Schools and Service Units

In many states, there are special schools that are not in districts

that are run directly by the state or by consortiums. There are also

service units that provide "educational services" ranging from books

and computers to janitorial supplies and building maintenance. Often

these service units do not have a one-to-one relationship with

districts.

There is some concern about naming these schools and service units

within the naming structure for schools established in this memo.

There are several possibilities. For a state with many service units

creating a "pseudo district" ESU (or whatever, the common terminology

is in that state) is a possibility. For example, the Johnson service

unit could be JOHNSON.ESU.K12.CA.US. For a state with a few such

service units (and avoiding conflicts with district names) the

service units could be directly under K12. For example,

TIES.K12.MN.US.

The special public funded schools can be handled in a similar

fashion. If there are many special schools in a state, a "pseudo

district" should be established and all the special schools listed

under it. For example, suppose there is a "pseudo district" in

Massachusetts called SPCL, and there is a special school called the

Progressive Computer Institute, then that school could have the name

PCI.SPCL.K12.MA.US. If there are only a few special schools, they

can be listed directly under K12 (avoiding name conflicts with

district names). For example, the California Academy of Math and

Science is CAMS.K12.CA.US. CAMS is sponsored by seven schools, the

California Department of Education, and a University.

"PVT" Private Schools

Private schools may be thought of as businesses. Public schools are

in districts, and districts provide a natural organizational

structure for naming and delegation. For private schools there are

no districts and they really do operate like businesses. But, many

people are upset to think about their children in a private school

being in a business category and not in K12 with the rest of the

children. To accommodate both public and private schools, in each

state's K12 branch, we've added an artificial district called private

or "PVT". This gives a private school the option of registering like

a business under "locality" or in the PVT.K12.<state-code>.US branch.

For example:

Crossroads.PVT.K12.CA.US

Crossroads-Santa-Monica.CA.US

A public school "Oak High" in the "Woodward" school district in

California would have a name like "Oak-High.Woodward.K12.CA.US".

A private school "Old Trail" in Pasadena, California could have the

<locality> based name "Old-Trail.Pasadena.CA.US" or the private

school base name "Old-Trail.PVT.K12.CA.US".

Some suggest that for private schools instead of a special pseudo

district PVT to use a locality name. One reason to use district

names is that, in time, it seems likely that school district

administrators will take over the operation of the DNS for their

district. One needs to be able to delegate at that branch point.

One implication of delegation is that the delegatee is now in charge

of a chunk of the name space and will be registering new names. To

keep names unique one can't have two different people registering new

things below identically named branches.

For example, if there is a school district named Pasadena and a city

named Pasadena, the branch of the name space PASADENA.K12.CA.US might

be delegated to the administrator of that public school district. If

a private school in Pasadena wanted to be registered in the DNS, it

would have to get the public school district administrator to do it

(perhaps unlikely) or not be in the K12 branch at all (unless there

is the PVT pseudo district).

So, if private schools are registered by

<school>.<locality>.K12.<state-code>.US and public schools are

registered by <school>.<district>.K12.<state-code>.US, there can't be

any locality names that are the same as district names or the

delegation of these will get very tricky later.

If it is all done by locality names rather than district names, and

public and private schools are mixed together, then finding an

appropriate party to delegate the locality to may be difficult.

Another suggestion was that private schools be registered directly

under K12, while public schools must be under a district under K12.

This would require the operator of the K12 branch to register all

districts and private schools himself (checking for name uniqueness),

he couldn't easily delegate the registration of the private schools

to anyone else.

Community Colleges and Technical Schools

To distinguish Community Colleges and Technical/Vocational schools,

the keywords "CC" and "TEC" have been created.

Some School Examples

Hamilton.High.LA-Unified.K12.CA.US <== a public school

Sherman-Oaks.Elem.LA-Unified.K12.CA.US <== a public school

John-Muir.Middle.Santa-Monica.K12.CA.US <== a public school

Crossroads-School.Santa-Monica.CA.US <== a private school

SMCC.CC.CA.US <== a community college

TECMCC.CC.CA.US <== a community college

Brick-and-Basket-Institute.TEC.CA.US <== a technical college

Northridge.CSU.STATE.CA.US <== a state university

2.4 State Agencies

Several states are setting up networks to interconnect the Offices of

state government agencies. The hosts in such networks should be

registered under the STATE.<state-code>.US branch.

A US Domain name space has been established for the state government

agencies. For example, in the State of Minnesota, the subdomain is

STATE.MN.US.

State Agencies:

---------------

Senate.STATE.MN.US <== State Senate

MDH.STATE.MN.US <== Dept. of Health

CALTRANS.STATE.CA.US <== Dept. of Transportation

DMV.STATE.CA.US <== Dept. of Motor Vehicles

2.5 Federal Agencies

A federal name space has been established for the federal government

agencies. For example, the subdomain for the Federal Reserve Bank of

Minneapolis is MNPL.FRB.FED.US. Other examples are listed below.

Federal Government Agencies:

---------------------------

Senate.FED.US <==== US Senate

DOD.FED.US <==== US Defense Dept.

USPS.FED.US <==== US Postal Service

VA.FED.US <==== US Veterans Administration

IRS.FED.US <==== US Internal Revenue Service

Yosemite.NPS.Interior.FED.US <==== A Federal agency

2.6 Distributed National Institutes

The "DNI" branch was created directly under the top-level US. This

is to be used for organizations that span state, regional, and other

organizational boundaries; are national in scope, and have

distributed facilities. An example would be:

Distributed National Institutes:

--------------------------------

MetaCenter.DNI.US <==== The MetaCenter Supercomputer Centers

The MetaCenter domain encompasses the four NSF sponsored

supercomputer centers. These are:

San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC)

National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA)

Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center (PSC)

Cornell Theory Center (CTC)

The MetaCenter Network will enable applications and services like

file systems and archival storage to be operated in a distributed

fashion; thus, allowing the resources at the four centers to appear

integrated and "seamless" to users of the centers.

2.7 General Independent Entities

This name space was created for organizations that don't really fit

anywhere else, such as state-wide associations, clubs, and "domain

parks". Think of this as the miscellaneous category.

The examples are state-wide clubs. For example, the Garden Club of

Arizona, might want to be "GARDEN.GEN.AZ.US". Such a club has

membership from all over the state and is not associated with any one

city (or locality). Another example is "domain parks" that have been

established up-to-now as entities in ORG. For example, there is

"LONESTAR.ORG", which is a kind of computer club in Texas that has

lots of dial-in computers registered. In the US Domain such an

entity might have a name like "LONESTAR.GEN.TX.US".

The organizations registered in GEN may typically be non-profit

entities. These organizations don't fit in a <locality> and are not

a school, library, or state agency. Ordinary businesses are not

registered in GEN.

Some suggest that these kinds of organizations are just like all the

other things and ought to be registered under some <locality>. This

may be true, but sometimes one just can't find any way to convince

the applicant that it is the right thing to do. One can argue that

any organization has to have a headquarters, or an office, or

something about it that is in a fixed place, and thus the

organization could be registered in that place.

Some suggest that no token is needed, these entities could be

directly under the <state-code>. The problem with not having a

token, is that you can't delegate the responsibility for registering

these entities to someone separate from whoever is responsible for

the <state-code>. You want to be able to delegate for both name-

uniqueness reasons, and operational management reasons. Having a

token there makes both easy.

General Independent Entities:

-----------------------------

CAL-Comp-Club.GEN.CA.US <==== The Computer Club of California

2.8 Examples of Names

For small entities like individuals or small businesses, there is

usually no problem with selecting locality based names.

For example: Zuckys.Santa-Monica.CA.US

For large entities like large corporations with multiple

facilities in several cities or states this often seems like an

unreasonable constraint (especially when compared with the

alternative of registering directly in the COM domain). However,

a company does have a headquarters office in a particular locality

and so could register with that name. Example: IBM.Armonk.NY.US

PRIVATE (business or individual)

================================

Camp-Curry.Yosemite.CA.US <==== a business

IBM.Armonk.NY.US <==== a business

Dogwood.atl.GA.US <==== a business

Geo-Petrellis.Culver-City.CA.US <==== a restaurant

Zuckys.Santa-Monica.CA.US <==== a restaurant

Joe-Josts.Long-Beach.CA.US <==== a bar

Holodek.Santa-Cruz.CA.US <==== a personal computer

FEDERAL

=======

Senate.FED.US <==== US Senate

DOD.FED.US <==== US Defense Dept.

DOT.FED.US <==== US Transportation Dept.

USPS.FED.US <==== US Postal Service

VA.FED.US <==== US Veterans Administration

IRS.FED.US <==== US Internal Revenue Service

Yosemite.NPS.Interior.FED.US <==== a federal agency

MNPL.FRB.FED.US. <==== US Fed. Reserve Bank of Minneapolis

STATE

=====

Senate.STATE.MN.US <==== state Senate

House.STATE.MN.US <==== state House of Reps

MDH.STATE.MN.US <==== state Health Dept.

HUD.STATE.CA.US <==== state House and Urban Dev. Dept.

DOT.STATE.MN.US <==== state Transportation Dept.

CALTRANS.STATE.CA.US <==== state Transportation Dept.

DMV.STATE.CA.US <==== state Motor Vehicles Dept.

Culver-City.DMV.STATE.CA.US <==== a local office of DMV

DNI (distributed national Institutes)

======================================

METACENTER.DNI.US <==== a distributed nat'l Inst.

GEN (General Independent Entities)

==================================

GARDEN.GEN.AZ.US <==== a garden club of Arizona

CITY CI COUNTY CO (locality)

==================================

Parks.CI.Culver-City.CA.US <==== a city department

Fire-Dept.CI.Los-Angeles.CA.US <==== a city department

Fire-Dept.CO.Los-Angeles.CA.US <==== a county department

Planning.CO.Fulton.GA.US. <==== a county department

Main.Library.CI.Los-Angeles.CA.US <==== a city department

MDR.Library.CO.Los-Angeles.CA.US <==== a county department

TOWNSHIP PARISH (locality)

============================

Police.TOWNSHIP.Green.OH.US <==== a township department

Administration.PARISH.Lafayette.LA.US <==== a parish department

DISTRICT LIBRARY (agency)

============================

SCAQMD.DISTRICT.CA.US <==== a regional district

Bunker-Hill-Improvement.DISTRICT.LA.CA.US <==== a local district

Huntington.LIB.CA.US <==== a private library

Venice.LA-City.LIB.CA.US <==== a city library

MDR.LA-County.LIB.CA.US <==== a county library

K12 PRIVATE SCHOOLS (PVT) CC TEC

======================================

Hamilton.High.LA-Unified.K12.CA.US <==== a public school

Sherman-Oaks.Elem.LA-Unified.K12.CA.US <==== a public K12 school

John-Muir.Middle.Santa-Monica.K12.CA.US <==== a public K12 school

Culver-High.CCSD.K12.CA.US <==== a public K12 school

St-Monica.High.Santa-Monica.CA.US <==== a private school

Crossroads-School.Santa-Monica.CA.US <==== a private school

Mary-Ellens.Montessori-School.LA.CA.US <==== a private school

Progress-Learning-Center.PVT.K12.CA.US <==== a private school

SMCC.Santa-Monica.CC.CA.US <==== a public community college

Trade-Tech.Los-Angeles.CC.CA.US <==== a public community college

Valley.Los-Angeles.CC.CA.US <==== a public community college

Brick-and-Basket-Institute.TEC.CA.US <== a technical college

When appropriate, subdomains are delegated and partioned in

various categories, such as:

<locality>.<state>.US = city/locality based names

K12.<state>.US = kindergarten thru 12th grade

PVT.K12.<state.US = private kindergarten thru 12th grade

CC.<state>.US = community colleges

TEC.<state>.US = technical or vocational schools

LIB.<state>.US = libraries

STATE.<state>.US = state government agencies

<org-name>.FED.US = federal government agencies

<org-name>.DNI.US = distributed national institutes

<org-name>.GEN.<state>.US. = statewide assoc,clubs,domain parks

The Appendix-I contains the current US Domain Names BNF.

3. REGISTRATION

There are two types of registrations (1) Delegation, where a branch

of the US Domain is delegated to an organization running name servers

to support that branch; or (2) Direct Registration, in which the

information is put directly into the main database.

In Direct Registration there are two cases: (a) an IP-host (with an

IP address), and (b) non-IP host (for example, a UUCP host). Any

particular registration will involve any one of these three

situations.

3.1 Requirements

Anyone requesting to register a host in the US Domain is sent a copy

of the "Instructions for the US Domain Template", and must fill out a

US Domain template.

The US Domain template, is similar to the InterNIC Domain template,

but it is not the same. To request a copy of the US Domain template,

send a message to the US Domain registrar (us-domain@isi.edu).

If you are registering a name in a delegated zone, please register

with the contact for that zone. You can FTP the file "in-notes/us-

domain-delegated.txt" from venera.isi.edu, via anonymous FTP. This

information is also available via email from RFC-INFO@ISI.EDU

(include as the only text in the message

"Help: us_domain_delegated_domains").

The key people must have electronic mailboxes (that work). Please

provide all the information indicated in the "Administrator" and

"Technical Contact" slots.

The administrator will be the point of contact for any administrative

and policy questions about the domain. The administrator is usually

the person who manages the organization being registered.

The technical contact can also be administrator, or the systems

person, or someone who is familiar with the technical details of the

Internet. The technical contact should have a valid working email

address. This is necessary in case something goes wrong.

It is important that your "Return-Path" and "From" field indicate an

Internet-style address. UUCP-style addresses such as "host1!user"

will not work. This is fine within the UUCP world, but not the

Internet. If you want people on the Internet to be able to send mail

to you, your return path needs to be an Internet-style address such

as: host1!user@Internet.gateway.host or user@Internet.gateway.host.

It is also possible to register through one of the Internet service

providers that have established working relationships with the US

Domain Administrator.

If everything checks out, the turn around time for registering a host

is usually a few days. The name servers are updated anywhere from 12

to 24 hours later.

There are two ways to be registered in the US Domain, directly, or by

delegation.

3.2 Direct Entries

Direct entry in the database of the US Domain appeals most to

individuals and small companies. You may fill out the application

and send it directly to the US Domain Administrator. If you are in

an area where the zone is delegated to someone else your request will

be forwarded to the zone administrator for your registration. Or,

you may send the form directly to the manager of a delegated zone

(see Section 3.1).

3.2.1 IP-Hosts

These are hosts with IP addresses which correspond to "A" records in

the DNS database.

3.2.2 Non-IP Hosts

Many applicants have hosts in the UUCP world. Some are one hop away,

some two and three hops away from their "Internet Forwarder", this is

acceptable. What is important is getting an Internet host to be your

forwarder. If you do not already have an Internet forwarder, there

are several businesses that provide this service for a fee, such as

UUNET.UU.NET (postmaster@uunet.uu.net), PSI (postmaster@UU2.PSI.COM)

and CERFNET (help@cerf.net). Sometimes local colleges in your area

are already on the Internet and may be willing to act as an Internet

Forwarder. You would need to work this out with the systems

administrator as we cannot make these arrangements for you.

Although we work with UUCP service providers, the Internet US Domain

registration is not affiliated with the registration of UUCP Map

entries. The UUCP map entry does not provide us with sufficient

information. If you do not have a copy of the US Domain

questionnaire template, please send a message to: us-domain@isi.edu

and request one. See Appendix-II.

The example below is not an appropriate registration for the US Domain.

#N starl

#S Amiga 2500; AmigaDOS 2.04; Dillon's AmigaUUCP 1.15D

#O Starlight BBS

#C Stephen Baker

#E starl!sbaker

#T +1 305 378 1161

#P 1107 SW 200th St #303B Miami, Fl. 33157

#L 25 47 N / 88 10 W [city]

#R

#U mthvax

#W starl!sbaker (Stephen Baker); Mon Feb 24 19:58:24 EST 1992

starl mthvax(DAILY)

If you are registering your host as a central site for a USENET group

where other UUCP sites will feed from you, that's fine. These UUCP

sites do not need to register. If however, the other sites become a

subdomain of your hostname, then we will need to register them

individually or add a wildcard record. (See Section 4.4. Wildcards).

For example: bah.rochester.ny.us

host1.bah.rochester.ny.us

host2.bah.rochester.ny.us

To use US Domain names for non-IP hosts, there must be a forwarder

host that is an IP host. There must be an administrative agreement

and a technical procedure for relaying mail between the non-IP host

and the forwarder host.

Case 1:

-------

Your host is not an IP host but does talk directly with a host that

is an IP host.

+-----------------+

+----------+ +---------+

your-host ---UUCP-----forwarder----IP/TCP-- INTERNET

+----------+ +---------+

+-----------------+

"Forwarder" must be an IP host on the Internet.

You must ask "forwarder" if they are willing to be the Internet

forwarder for "your-host".

In the US Domain of the DNS data base there must be an entry like

this:

"your-host" MX 10 "forwarder"

This must be entered by the US Domain Administrator.

In the "forwarder" routing tables there must be information about

"your-host" with a rule like: If I see mail for "your-host" I will

send it via uucp by calling phone number "123-4567".

Case 2:

-------

In this case your hosts talks to another host that ... that talks to

an IP host. In other words, there are multiple hops between your host

and the Internet.

+-----------------+

+----------+ +---------+

path-host ---UUCP-----forwarder----IP/TCP-- INTERNET

+----------+ +---------+

+-----------------+

UUCP

+----------+

your-host

+----------+

"Forwarder" must be an IP host on the Internet.

You must ask "forwarder" if they are willing to be the Internet

Forwarder for "Your-Host". You must ask "path-host" to relay your

mail.

In the US Domain of the DNS Database there must be an entry like this:

"your-host" MX 10 "forwarder"

This must be entered by the US Domain Administrator.

In the "forwarder" routing tables there must be information about

"your-host" with a rule like: If I see mail for "your-host" I will

send it via UUCP to "path-host" by calling phone number "123-4567".

and "path-host" must also know how to relay the mail to "your-host".

Note: It is assumed that "path-host" is already MXed to "forwarder".

It is not appropriate to ask to MX "your-host" to "path-host" (this

is sometimes called double MXing). The host on the right hand side

of an MX entry must be a host on the Internet with an IP address

(e.g., 128.9.2.32).

3.3 Delegated Subdomains

Many branches of the US Domain are delegated. There must be a

knowledgeable and competent technical contact, familiar with the

Internet DNS. This requirement is easily satisified if the technical

contact already runs some other name servers.

Examples of delegations are K12.TX.US for the Kindergarten through

12th Grade public schools in Texas, the locality "berkeley.ca.us", or

the LIB.MN.US branch for the libraries in Minnesota.

The administrator of the US Domain is responsible for the assignment

of all the DNS names that end with ".US". Of course, one person or

even one group can't handle all this in the long run so portions of

the name space are delegated to others.

The major concern in selecting a designated manager for a domain is

that it be able to carry out the necessary responsibilities, and have

the ability to do an equitable, just, honest, and competent job.

The key requirement is that for each domain there be a designated

manager for supervising that domain's name space.

These designated authorities are trustees for the delegated domain,

and have a duty to serve the community.

The designated manager is the trustee of the domain for the domain

itself and the global Internet community.

Concerns about "rights" and "ownership" of domains are inappropriate.

It is appropriate to be concerned about "responsibilities" and

"service" to the community.

The designated manager must be equitable to all groups in the domain

that request domain names.

This means that the same rules are applied to all requests. All

requests must be processed in a nondiscriminatory fashion, and

academic and commercial (and other) users are treated on an equal

basis. No bias shall be shown regarding requests that may come from

customers of some other business related to the manager -- e.g., no

preferential service for customers of a particular data network

provider. There can be no requirement that a particular mail system

(or other application), protocol, or product be used.

There are no requirements on subdomains beyond the requirements on

higher-level domains themselves. That is, the requirements are

applied recursively. In particular, all subdomains shall be allowed

to operate their own domain name servers, providing in them whatever

information the subdomain manager sees fit (as long as it is true and

correct).

Significantly interested parties in the domain should agree that the

designated manager is the appropriate party.

The US Domain Administrator tries to have any contending parties

reach agreement among themselves, and generally takes no action to

change things unless all the contending parties agree; only in cases

where the designated manager has substantially neglected their

responsibilities would the US Domain Administrator step in.

The designated manager must do a satisfactory job of operating the

DNS service for the domain.

That is, the actual management of the assigning of domain names,

delegating subdomains and operating name servers must be done with

technical competence. This includes keeping the US Domain

Administrator or other higher-level domain managers advised of the

status of the domain, responding to requests in a timely manner, and

operating the database with accuracy, robustness, and resilience.

There must be a primary and a secondary name server that have IP

connectivity to the Internet and can be easily checked for

operational status and database accuracy by the US Domain

Administrator.

One of the ASPects of having two name servers for each domain (or

zone), is for robustness. One concern under this heading is that the

name service not go out entirely if there is a local power failure

(earthquake, tornado, or other disaster).

Name Servers should be in distinctly separate physical locations. It

is appropriate to have more than two name servers, but there must be

at least two.

For any transfer of the designated manager trusteeship from one

organization to another, the higher-level domain manager must receive

communications from both the old organization and the new

organization that assures the US Domain Administrator that the

transfer in mutually agreed, and that the new organization

understands its responsibilities.

It is also very helpful for the US Domain Administrator to receive

communications from other parties that may be concerned or affected

by the transfer.

Delegation of cities, companies within cities, schools (K12),

community colleges (CC), libraries (LIB), state government (STATE),

and federal government agencies (FED), etc., is acceptable and

practical.

For a delegated portion of the name space, for example a city, no

alterations can be made to that name, no abbreviations added, etc.

unless applied for.

Sometimes there may be two people running name servers in the same

city because different portions of the name space has been delegated

to them. For example, someone may be delegated the <city>.<state>.US

name space, and someone else from a state government agency may have

the .STATE.<state>.US, portion. For example, Fred may run the name

servers for Sacramento.CA.US and Joe may run the name servers for

STATE.CA.US in Sacramento.

If a company would like to have wildcard records added, or run their

own name servers in a city that we have delegated name space to, this

is acceptable.

Delegation of the whole State name space is not yet implemented. The

delegated part of the name space is in the form of:

.<locality>.<state>.US.

.CI.<locality>.<state>.US.

.CO.<locality>.<state>.US.

.STATE.<state>.US.

.K12.<state>.US.

PVT.K12.<state>.US.

.CC.<state>.US.

.TEC.<state>.US.

.LIB.<state>.US.

.GEN.<state>.US.

.DNI.US.

.FED.US.

3.3.1. Delegation Requirements

When a subdomain is delegated, the following requirements must be

met:

1) There must be a knowledgeable and competent technical contact,

familiar with the Internet DNS. This requirement is easily

satisified if the technical contact already runs some other

name servers.

2) Organizations requesting delegations must provide at least two

independent (robust and reliable) DNS name servers in

physically separate locations on the Internet.

3) The subdomain must accept all applicants on an equal basis.

4) The subdomain must provide timely processing of requests. To

do this, it is helpful to have several individuals

knowledgeable about the procedures so that the operations are

not delayed due to one persons unavailability (for example, by

being on vacation).

5) The subdomain manager must tell the US Domain Administrator

when there are changes in the name servers that should be

reflected in the US Domain zone files, or changes in the

contact information.

K12 Administrators

In the long term, registering schools will be a big job. So you

need to have in mind delegating parts of the work to various

school districts. If you can delegate every school district in

the state then you are finished, except for checking that they are

all operating correctly. However, initially you will have quite a

bit to do with educating people, helping them choose names and

getting name servers arranged. You are responsible for seeing

that the naming of schools follow the guidelines suggested in this

memo.

All K12 Administrators will initially be responsible for managing

the "pseudo district" PVT for private schools. Private schools

have the option of registering as <school-name>.PVT.K12.<state>.US

or as a business under the city based names.

Locality Administrators

If you have been delegated a locality subdomain, you will be

responsible for registering not only businesses directly under the

locality, but city and county agencies under the "CI" and "CO"

branches. When appropriate these branches should be delegated.

If you want, you may spell out "CITY" instead of "CI" or "COUNTY"

instead of "CO", but you must be consistent and use only one or

the other in a given locality. The whole city government should

be under one branch.

WHOIS Database

Only the second and third level delegated name spaces will be

entered in the WHOIS database. For example, K12.CA.US would have

an entry in WHOIS. Anything under K12.CA.US will not be listed.

The US Domain Administrator will send the information that you

supplied on your US Domain template to the InterNIC. It is the

hope that in the future, each delegated subdomain will provide

their own WHOIS Directory database for their branch.

3.3.2 Delegation Procedures

The procedure that is followed when a subdomain is delegated includes

the following steps:

1) Evaluate the technical contact's experience with DNS. Make

sure there is a need for the proposed delegation. Make sure

the technical contact has the information about the US Domain

and the suggested naming structure. Two contacts with email

addresses are necessary in case something goes wrong.

2) Add the new technical contact to the "us-dom-adm" mailing list

for distributing updates concerning the US Domain policies and

procedures.

3) Delete any hosts from our zone file that belongs in the newly

delegated subdomain and make sure they now have the hosts in

their zone file.

4) Send them a copy of the zone file so their initial zone file

is identical to ours. For example:

mil.wi.us. 69582 SOA spool.mu.edu.

manager.spool.mu.edu. (

930119 ;serial

28800 ;refresh

14400 ;retry

3600000 ;expire

86400 ) ;minim

mil.wi.us. 69582 NS spool.mu.edu.

spool.mu.edu. 85483 A 134.48.1.31

mil.wi.us. 69582 NS sophie.mscs.mu.edu.

sophie.mscs.mu.edu. 85483 A 134.48.4.6

solaria.mil.wi.us. 69582 HINFO Sun 3/60 SunOs

solaria.mil.wi.us. 69582 MX 10 spool.mu.edu.

nthomas.mil.wi.us. 69582 HINFO 386 Clone DOS

nthomas.mil.wi.us. 69582 MX 10 spool.mu.edu.

rwmke.mil.wi.us. 69582 HINFO UNIX PC UNIX

rwmke.mil.wi.us. 69582 MX 10 spool.mu.edu.

milestn.mil.wi.us. 69582 MX 10 spool.mu.edu.

nrunner.mil.wi.us. 69582 HINFO MacIntosh System 7

nrunner.mil.wi.us. 69582 MX 10 spool.mu.edu.

dawley.mil.wi.us. 69582 HINFO 386 Clone DOS

dawley.mil.wi.us. 69582 MX 10 spool.mu.edu.

...

5) The US Domain zone file must have the following records,

showing the name, address, email, and phone number of the

technical contact for the delegated subdomain and the name of

the delegated name space and the names of the name servers.

;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;

;

;Contact: Joseph Klein (tjk@spool.mu.edu)

; Marquette University

; (414) 288-6734

;

;Delegate mil.wi.us zone

mil.wi.us. 604800 NS SPOOL.MU.EDU.

604800 NS SOPHIE.MSCS.MU.EDU.

; A glue record is not needed this time. Glue records are

; needed when the name of the server is a subdomain of the

; delegated domain.

;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;

6) Check to see that delegated subdomain name servers are up and

running, and make sure the delegated hosts are installed in

their zone file. Now delete any hosts from the US Domain zone

file that belongs in the newly delegated subdomain.

7) Inform the technical contact of the newly delegated subdomain

that wildcard records are allowed in the zone file under the

organizational subdomain but no wildcard records are allowed

under the "city" or "state" domain.

8) Make sure each administrator has a copy of this RFCand

follows the guidelines set forth.

3.3.3 Subdomain Contacts

The number of hosts registered under each subdomain is unknown. See

Section 3.1 for information on the delegated domains and the

contacts.

4. DATABASE INFORMATION

4.1. Name Servers

Name servers are the repositories of information that make up the

domain database. The database is divided up into sections called

zones, which are distributed among the name servers. While name

servers can have several optional functions and sources of data, the

essential task of a name server is to answer queries using data in

its zones. The response to a query can always be generated using

only local data, and either contains the answer to the question or a

referral to other name servers "closer" to the desired information.

A given zone will be available from several name servers to insure

its availability in spite of host or communication link failure.

Every zone is required to be available on at least two servers, and

many zones have more redundancy than that.

The US Domain is currently supported by seven name servers:

venera.isi.edu

ns.isi.edu

rs.internic.net

ns.csl.sri.com

ns.uu.net

adm.brl.mil

excalibur.usc.edu

4.2 Zone Files

A "zone" is a registry of domains kept by a particular organization.

A zone registry is "authoritative", that is, the master copy of the

registry is kept by the zone organization, and this copy is, by

definition, always up-to-date. Copies of this registry may be

distributed to other places and kept in caches, but these caches are

not authoritative, and may be out-of-date.

Every zone has at least one node, and hence domain name, for which it

is authoritative, and all of the nodes in a particular zone are

connected. Given the tree structure, every zone has a highest node

which is closer to the root than any other node in the zone. The

name of this node is often used to identify the zone. The data that

describes a zone has four major parts:

1) Authoritative data for all nodes within the zone.

2) Data that defines the top node of the zone

(can be thought of as part of the authoritative data).

3) Data that describes delegated subzones, i.e., cuts

around the bottom of the zone,

4) Data that allows Access to name servers for subzones

(sometimes called "glue" data).

The zone administrator has to maintain the zones at all the name

servers which are authoritative for the zone. When the changes are

made, they must be distributed to all of the name servers.

Copies of the zone files are not available unless you are on the

Internet. To look at the zone files use the "dig" program of the DNS

domain name system.

dig @nshost host-your-checking axfr

4.3 Resource Records

Records in the zone data files are called resource records (RRs).

The standard Resource records (RR) are specified in STD 13, RFC1034

and STD 13, RFC1035 (3,4). An RR has a standard format as shown.

<name> [<ttl>] [<class>] <type> <data>

The first field is always the name of the domain record. The second

field is an optional time to live field. This specifies how long

this data will be stored in the data base. The third field is the

address class; the class field specifies the protocol group most

often this is the Internet class "IN". The fourth field states the

type of the resource record. The fields after that are dependent on

the Type of RR. The fifth field is the data field which is defined

differently for each type and class of data. Here is a list of the

current commonly used types:

SOA Start of Authority

NS Name Server

A Internet Address

CNAME Canonical Name (nickname pointer)

HINFO Host Information

WKS Well Known Services

MX Mail Exchanger

PTR Pointer

What do the fields mean?

foo.LA.CA.US. 604800 MX 10 Venera.ISI.EDU.

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5)

1) domain name

2) time to live information

3) mail exchanger record

4) preference value to determine (if more than one

forwarder) which mailer to use first, lower number

higher preference

5) the Internet forwarding host.

4.3.1 "A" Records

Internet (IP) Address. The data for an "A" record is an Internet

address in a dotted decimal form. A sample "A" record might look

like:

venera.isi.edu. A 128.9.0.32

(name) (A) (address)

The name field is the machine name, and the address is the network

address. There should be only one "A" record for each address of a

host.

4.3.2 CNAME Records

Canonical Name resource record, CNAME, specifies an alias for a

canonical name. This is essentially a pointer to the official name

for the requested name. All other RRs appear under this official

name. A machine named FERNWOOD.MPK.CA.US may want to have the

nickname ANTERIOR.MPK.CA.US. In that case, the following RR would be

used:

anterior.mpk.ca.us. CNAME fernwood.mpk.ca.us.

(alias nickname) (canonical name)

Nicknames (the name associated with the RR is the nickname) may be

added for awhile when a host changes its name, usually because it

moves to another state. It helps to have this CNAME pointer so if

any mail comes to the old address it will get forwarded to the new

one. There cannot be any other RRs associated with a nickname of the

same class.

4.3.3 MX Records

Mail Exchanger records, MX, are used to specify a machine that knows

how to deliver mail to a machine that is not directly connected to

the Internet. For example, venera.isi.edu is the mail gateway that

knows how to deliver mail to foo.la.ca.us, but other machines on the

network cannot deliver mail directly to foo.la.ca.us. These two

machines may have a private connection or use a different transport

medium (such as uucp). The preference value (10) is the order that a

mailer should follow when there is more than one way to deliver mail

to a single machine. The lower the number the higher the preference.

foo.LA.CA.US. 604800 MX 10 Venera.ISI.EDU.

foo.LA.CA.US. 604800 MX 20 relay1.uu.net.

4.3.4 HINFO Records

Host information resource records, HINFO is for host specific data.

This lists the hardware and operating system that are running at the

listed host. It should be noted that a space separates the hardware

information and the operating system information. If you want to

include a space in the machine name you must quote the name. Host

information is not specific to any class, so ANY may be used for the

address class. There should be one HINFO record for each host.

acb.la.ca.us. HINFO VAX-11/780 UNIX

(Hardware) (Operating System)

The official HINFO types can be found in the latest Assigned Numbers

RFC, the most recent edition being STD 2, RFC1340 [9]. The hardware

type is called the Machine Name, and the software type is called the

System Name.

The information users supply about this is often inconsistent or

incomplete. Please follow the terms in the current "Assigned

Numbers".

4.3.5 PTR Records

A Domain Name Pointer record, PTR, allows special names to point to

some other location in the domain data base. These are typically

used in setting up reverse pointers for the special IN-ADDR.ARPA

domain. PTR names should be unique to the zone.

0.0.9.128.in-addr.arpa PTR isi-net.isi.edu.

(special name) (real name)

A PTR record is to be added to the IN-ADDR.ARPA domain for every "A"

record registered in the US Domain. These PTR records need to be

added by the administrator of the network where the host is

connected. The US Domain Administration does not administer the

network and cannot make these entries in the DNS database.

4.4 Wildcards

The wildcard records are of the form "*.<anydomain>", where

<anydomain> is any domain name. The wildcards potentially apply to

descendents of <anydomain>, but not to <anydomain> itself.

For example, suppose a large company located in California with a

large, non-IP/TCP, network wanted to create a mail gateway. If the

company was called DWP.LA.CA.US, and the IP/TCP capable gateway

machine (Internet forwarder) was called ELROY.JPL.NASA.GOV, the

following RRs might be entered into the .US zone.

dwp.la.ca.us MX 10 ELROY.JPL.NASA.GOV

*.dwp.la.ca.us MX 10 ELROY.JPL.NASA.GOV

The wildcard record *.DWP.LA.CA.US would cause an MX query for any

domain name ending in DWP.LA.CA.US to return an MX RR pointing at

ELROY.JPL.NASA.GOV. The entry without the "*" is needed so the host

dwp can be found.

In the US Domain, wildcard records are allowed in our zone files

under the organizational subdomain (and where noted otherwise) but no

wildcard records are allowed under the "City" or "State" domain.

The authors strongly believe that it is in everyone's

interest and good for the Internet to have each host

explicitly registered (that is, we believe that wildcards

should not be used), we also realize that not everyone

agrees with this belief. Thus, we will allow wildcard

records in the US Domain under groups or organizations.

For example, *.DWP.LA.CA.US.

The reason we feel single entries are the best is by the mere

fact that if anyone wanted to find one of the hosts in the

domain name system it would be there, and problems can be

detected more easily. When using wildcards records all the

hosts under a subdomain are hidden.

5. REFERENCES

[1] Stahl, M., "Domain Administrators Guide", RFC1032, SRI

International, November 1987.

[2] Lottor, M., "Domain Administrators Operations Guide" RFC1033,

SRI International, November 1987.

[3] Mockapetris, P., "Domain Names - Concepts and Facilities",

STD 13, RFC1034, ISI, November 1987.

[4] Mockapetris, P., "Domain Names - Implementation and

Specification", STD 13, RFC1035, ISI, November 1987.

[5] Dunlap, K., "Name Server Operations Guide for Bind,

Release 4.3", UC Berkeley, SMM:11-3.

[6] Partridge, C., "Mail Routing and the Domain Name System",

STD 14, RFC974, BBN, January 1986.

[7] Albitz, P., C. Liu, "DNS and Bind" Help for UNIX System

Administrators, O'Reilly and Associates, Inc., October 1992.

[8] ACM SIGUCCS Networking Taskforce, "Connecting to the Internet -

What Connecting Institutions Should Anticipate", FYI 16,

RFC1359, August 1992.

[9] Reynolds, J., and J. Postel, "Assigned Numbers", STD 2,

RFC1340, ISI, July 1992.

6. Security Considerations

Security issues are not discussed in this memo.

7. Authors' Addresses

Ann Cooper

USC/Information Sciences Institute

4676 Admiralty Way

Marina del Rey, CA 90292

Phone: 1-310-822-1511

Email: cooper@isi.edu

Jon Postel

USC/Information Sciences Institute

4676 Admiralty Way

Marina del Rey, CA 90292

Phone: 1-310-822-1511

Email: postel@isi.edu

APPENDIX-I: US DOMAIN NAMES BNF

================================

<us-domain-name> ::= <us-name><dot><us>

<us-name> ::= <state-name><dot><state-code>

<fed-name><dot><fed>

<dni-name><dot><dni>

<state-code> ::= <the two-letter code of a state from the

zip code directory>

<state-name> ::= <local-name><dot><locality>

<state-agency-name><dot><state>

<regional-agency-name><dot><agency>

<fed-name> ::= <the dotted hierarchical name of a US

federal government agency>

<dni-name> ::= <the dotted hierarchical name of a

distributed national institution>

<locality> ::= <the full name of a city from the

zip code directory>

<a short code name for a city>

<the full name of a county, township,

or parish>

<other well known and commonly used

locality name>

<local-name> ::= <entity-name>

<city-name><dot><city>

<county-name><dot><county>

<local-agency-name><dot><local-agency>

<state-agency-name> ::= <the dotted hierarchical name of a state

government agency>

<regional-agency-name> ::= <the dotted hierarchical name of a

special agency or district not an

element of the state government and

typically larger than a single city or

county, for example, the Southern

California Air Quality Management District>

<entity-name> ::= <the dotted hierarchical name of an

entity within a city, for example: a

company, business, private school, club,

organization, or individual>

<city-name> ::= <the dotted hierarchical name of a city

government agency>

<county-name> ::= <the dotted hierarchical name of a county,

township, or parish government agency>

<local-agency-name> ::= <the dotted hierarchical name of a special

agency or district not an element of a

city or county government and typically

equal or smaller than a single city or

county, for example, the Bunker Hill

Improvement District>

<city> ::= "CI" "CITY"

<county> ::= "CO" "COUNTY" "TOWNSHIP" "PARISH"

<dot> ::= "."

<fed> ::= "FED"

<dni> ::= "DNI"

<state> ::= "STATE" "COMMONWEALTH"

<agency> ::= "AGENCY" "DISTRICT" "K12" "CC" "LIB"

"GEN" "TEC"

<local-agency> ::= "AGENCY" "DISTRICT"

<us> ::= "US"

Notes:

Within States:

"K12" may be used for public school districts. A special name

"PVT" can be used in the place of a school district name for

private schools.

"CC" may be used only for public community colleges.

"LIB" may be only used by libraries.

"TEC" is used only for technical and vocational schools and colleges.

"GEN" is for general independent entities, that is, organizations

that don't really fit anywhere else (such as statewide associations,

clubs, and "domain parks").

"STATE" may be used only for state government entities.

Below US, parallel to States:

"FED" is for agencies of the federal government.

"DNI" is for distributed national institutes; organizations that

span state, regional, and other organizational boundaries; that

are national in scope, and have distributed facilities.

Examples:

=========

Geo-Petrellis.Culver-City.CA.US <== resturant

Joe-Josts.Long-Beach.CA.US <== bar

IBM.Armonk.NY.US <== business

Camp-Curry.Yosemite.CA.US <== business

Yosemite.NPS.Interior.FED.US <== federal agency

Senate.FED.US <== US Senate

DOD.FED.US <== US Defense Dept.

DOT.FED.US <== US Transportation Dept.

MNPL.FRB.FED.US <== the Minneapolis branch of

the Federal Reserve Bank

MetaCenter.DNI.US <== distributed Nat'l Inst

Senate.STATE.MN.US <== state Senate

House.STATE.MN.US <== state House of Reps

Assembly.STATE.CA.US <== state Assembly

MDH.STATE.MN.US <== state Health Dept.

DOT.STATE.MN.US <== state Transportation Dept

CALTRANS.STATE.CA.US <== state Transportation Dept

DMV.STATE.CA.US <== state Motor Vehicles Dept

Culver-City.DMV.STATE.CA.US <== local office of DMV

Police.CI.Culver-City.CA.US <== city department

Fire-Dept.CI.Los-Angeles.CA.US <== city department

Fire-Dept.CO.Los-Angeles.CA.US <== county department

Main.Library.CI.Los-Angeles.CA.US <== city department

MDR.Library.CO.Los-Angeles.CA.US <== county department

Huntington.LIB.CA.US <== private library

SMCC.Santa-Monica.CC.CA.US <== public community college

Trade-Tech.Los-Angeles.CC.CA.US <== public community college

Valley.Los-Angeles.CC.CA.US <== public community college

Hamilton.High.LA-Unified.K12.CA.US <== public school

Sherman-Oaks.Elem.LA-Unified.K12.CA.US <== public school

John-Muir.Middle.Santa-Monica.K12.CA.US <== public school

St-Monicas.High.Santa-Monica.CA.US <== private school

Crossroads-School.Santa-Monica.CA.US <== private school

Mary-Ellens-Montessori-School.LA.CA.US <== private school

Progress-Learning-Center.PVT.K12.CA.US <== private school

Brick-and-Basket-Institute.TEC.CA.US <== technical college

Bunker-Hill.DISTRICT.Los-Angeles.CA.US <== local district

SCAQMD.DISTRICT.CA.US <== regional district

Berkeley.UC.STATE.CA.US <== "CAL"

Los-Angeles.UC.STATE.CA.US <== UCLA

Irvine.UC.STATE.CA.US <== UC Irvine

Northridge.CSU.STATE.CA.US <== CSUN

Los-Angeles.CSU.STATE.CA.US <== Cal State LA

Leland-Stanford-Jr-University.Stanford.CA.US <== private school

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

APPENDIX-II: US DOMAIN QUESTIONNAIRE FOR HOST ENTRY

To register a host in the US domain, the US Domain Template must be

sent to the US Domain Registrar (US-Domain@ISI.EDU). The first few

pages explain each question on the attached template. FILL OUT THE

TWO PAGE TEMPLATE AT THE END. Questions may be sent by electronic

mail to the above address, or by phone to Ann Cooper, USC/Information

Sciences Institute, (310) 822-1511.

(1) Please specify whether this is a new application, modification to

an existing registration, or deletion.

(2) The name of the domain. This is the name that will be used in

tables and lists associating the domain with the domain server

addresses. See RFC1480 - The US Domain for more details.

<host>.<city/locality>.<state>.US. = city/locality based names

<school>.<district>.K12.<state>.US. = kindergarten thru 12th grade

<school>.PVT.K12.<state>.US. = private K thru 12th grade

<school>.<locality>.<state>.US. = PVT sch opt: locality names

<school>.CC.<state>.US. = community colleges

<school>.TEC.<state>.US. = technical or vocational schools

<lib-name>.LIB.<state>.US. = libraries

<org-name>.STATE.<state>.US. = state government agencies

<org-name>.FED.US. = federal government agencies

<org-name>.DNI.US. = distributed national institutes

<org>.GEN.<state>.US. = statewide assoc,clubs,domain parks

For example: networthy.santa-clara.ca.us.

(3) The name of the entity represented, that is, the organization

being named. For example: The Networthy Corporation. Not the

name of the organization submitting the request.

(4) Please describe the domain briefly.

For example: The Networthy Corporation is a consulting

organization of people working with UNIX and the C language

in an electronic networking environment. It sponsors two

technical conferences annually and distributes a bimonthly

newsletter.

(5) The date you expect the domain to be fully operational.

For every registration, we need both the Administrative and the

Technical contacts of a domain (questions 6 & 7) and we MUST have a

network mailbox for each. If you have a NIC handle (a unique NIC

database identifier) please enter it. (If you don't know what a NIC

handle is leave it blank). Also the title, mailing address, phone

number, organization, and network mailbox.

(6) The name of the administrative head of the "organization". The

administrator is the contact point for administrative and policy

questions about the domain. The Domain administrator should work

closely with the personnel he has designated as the "technical

contact" for his domain. In this example the Domain Administrator

would be the Administrator of the Networthy Corporation, not the

Administrator of the organization running the name server

(unless it is the same person).

(7) The name of the technical and zone contact. The technical and

zone contact handles the technical aspects of maintaining the

domain's name server and resolver software, and database files.

He keeps the name server running. More than likely, this person

would be the technical contact running the primary name server.

***********************************************************************

PLEASE READ: There are several types of registrations.

(a) Delegation (i.e., a portion of the US Domain name space is

given to an organization running name servers to support that

branch; For example, K12.TX.US, for all K12 schools in Texas).

For (a) answer questions 8 and 9.

(b) Direct Registration of an IP Host.

For (b) answer question 10.

(c) Direct Registration of a non-IP Host.

For (c) answer question 11 and 12.

***********************************************************************

QUESTIONS FOR DELEGATIONS

(8) PRIMARY SERVER Information. It is required to supply both the

Contact information as well as hardware/software information of

the primary name server.

(9)* SECONDARY SERVER Information. It is required to supply the

hardware and software information of all secondary name servers.

Domains must provide at least two independent servers that provide the

domain service for translating names to addresses for hosts in this

domain. If you are applying for a domain and a network number

assignment simultaneously and a host on your proposed network will be

used as a server for the domain, you must wait until you receive your

network number assignment and have given the server(s) a net- address

before sending in the domain application. Establishing the servers in

physically separate locations and on different PSNs and/or networks is

strongly recommended.

NOTE: For those applicants not able to run name servers, or for non-IP

hosts the Name Server information is not applicable. (See #10 and #11).

=======================================================================

QUESTION FOR DIRECT IP HOSTS (If you answered 8 & 9 do not answer

10, 11, or 12).

(10) What Domain Name System (DNS) Resource Records (RR) and values are

to be entered for your IP host (must have an "A" record).

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Example: RRs for an INTERNET hosts.

(a) DOMAIN NAME (required)...: Networthy.Santa-Clara.CA.US.

(b) IP ADDRESS (required)....: A 128.9.3.123 (required)

(c) HARDWARE (opt)...........: SUN-3/11O

(d) OPERATING SYS (opt)......: UNIX

(e) WKS (opt)........: 128.9.3.123. UDP (echo tftp) TCP (ftp)

(f) MX (opt).................: 10 RELAY.ISI.EDU.

It is your responsibility to see that an IN-ADDR pointer record is

entered in the DNS database. (For Internet hosts only). Contact the

administrator of the IP network your host is on to have this done.

The US Domain administration does not administer the network and

cannot make these entries in the DNS database.

=======================================================================

QUESTIONS FOR NON-IP HOSTS (such as UUCP).

Many applicants have hosts in the UUCP world. Some are one hop away,

some two and three hops away from their "Internet Forwarder", this is

ok. What is important is getting an Internet host to be your

forwarder. If you do not already have an Internet forwarder, there

are several businesses that provide this service for a fee, (see

RFC1359 - Connecting to the Internet What Connecting Institutions

Should Anticipate, ACM SIGUCCS, August 1992). Sometimes local colleges

in your area are already on the Internet and may be willing to act

as an Internet Forwarder. You would need to work this out with the

systems administrator. We cannot make these arrangements for you.

(11) Internet Forwarding Host Information

(11a) What is the name of your Internet forwarding host?

For example: The host Yacht-Club.MDR.CA.US uses

UUCP to connect to RELAY.ISI.EDU which is an Internet

host. (i.e., RELAY.ISI.EDU is the forwarding host).

(11b) What is the name of your contact person at forwarding host?

The Administrator of RELAY.ISI.EDU must agree to be the

forwarding host for Yacht-Club.MDR.CA.US, and the

forwarding host must know a delivery method and route to

Networthy. No double MXing.

(11c) What is the mailbox of your contact?

What is the mailbox of the administrator of the forwarding

host.

Example: Contact Name......: John Smith

Contact Email.....: js@RELAY.ISI.EDU

(12) What Domain Name System (DNS) Resource Records (RR) and values

are to be entered for your NON-IP host.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Example: RRs for a NON-IP host (uucp).

(a) DOMAIN NAME (required).....: Yacht-Club.MDR.CA.US.

(b) HARDWARE (opt).............: SUN-3/11O

(c) OPERATING SYS (opt)........: UNIX

(d) MX (required)..............: 10 RELAY.ISI.EDU.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

PLEASE ALLOW AT LEAST 8 WORKING DAYS FOR PROCESSING THIS APPLICATION

US DOMAIN TEMPLATE [6/93]

PLEASE SUBMIT THE FOLLOWING TWO PAGE TEMPLATE TO (Us-Domain@isi.edu).

Sections or fields of this form marked with an asterisk (*) may be

copied as many times as necessary. (For example: If you had two phone

numbers for the Administrative Contact, you would use the same number

"6h" twice. PLEASE DO NOT ALTER THIS APPLICATION IN ANY WAY.

=====================================================================

1. REGISTRATION TYPE

(N)ew (M)odify (D)elete..:

2.* FULLY-QUALIFIED DOMAIN NAME:

3. ORGANIZATION INFORMATION

3a. Organization Name.....:

3b. Address Line 1........:

3b. Address Line 2........:

3c. City..................:

3d. State.................:

3e. Zip/Code..............:

4. DESCRIPTION OF ORG/DOMAIN:

5. Date Operational......:

6. ADMINISTRATIVE CONTACT OF ORG/DOMAIN

6a. NIChandle (if known)..:

6b. Whole Name............:

6c. Organization Name.....:

6d. Address Line 1........:

6d. Address Line 2........:

6e. City..................:

6f. State.................:

6g. Zip/Code..............:

6h.* Voice Phone...........:

6i.* Electronic Mailbox....:

7. TECHNICAL AND ZONE CONTACT

7a. NIChandle (if known)..:

7b. Whole Name............:

7c. Organization Name.....:

7d. Address Line 1........:

7d. Address Line 2........:

7e. City..................:

7f. State.................:

7g. Zip/Code..............:

7h.* Voice Phone...........:

7i.* Electronic Mailbox....:

FILL OUT QUESTIONS 8 AND 9 FOR DELEGATIONS ONLY (i.e., those

organizations running name servers for a branch of the US Domain

name space, for example: k12.<state>.us).

8. PRIMARY SERVER: CONTACT INFO, HOSTNAME, NETADDRESS

8a. NIChandle (if known)..:

8b. Whole Name............:

8c. Organization Name.....:

8d. Address Line 1........:

8d. Address Line 2........:

8e. City..................:

8f. State.................:

8g. Zip/Code..............:

8h.* Voice Phone...........:

8i.* Electronic Mailbox....:

8j. Hostname..............:

8k.* IP Address............:

8l.* HARDWARE..............:

8m.* OPERATING SYS.........:

9. * SECONDARY SERVER: HOSTNAME, NETADDRESS

9a.* Hostname..............:

9b.* IP Address............:

9c.* HARDWARE..............:

9d.* OPERATING SYS.........:

FILL OUT QUESTION 10 FOR DIRECT REGISTRATIONS IP HOSTS

10. RESOURCE RECORDS (RRs) FOR IP INTERNET HOSTS

10a. DOMAIN NAME...........:

10b.* IP ADDRESS (required).:

10c. HARDWARE..............:

10d. OPERATING SYS.........:

10e. WKS ..................:

10f.* MX....................:

FILL OUT QUESTIONS 11 AND 12 FOR NON-IP HOSTS (such as UUCP)

11. FORWARDING HOST INFORMATION

11a. Forwarding Host......:

11b. Contact Name.........:

11c. Contact Email........:

12. RESOURCE RECORDS (RRs) FOR NON-IP HOSTS (UUCP)

12a. DOMAIN NAME...........:

12b. HARDWARE..............:

12c. OPERATING SYS.........:

12d.* MX (required).........:

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• ·RFC1468 - Japanese Char
• ·RFC1476 - RAP: Internet
• ·RFC1475 - TP/IX: The Ne
• ·RFC1478 - An Architectu
• ·RFC1477 - IDPR as a Pro
• ·RFC1483 - Multiprotocol
• ·RFC1386 - The US Domain
• ·RFC1486 - An Experiment
• ·RFC1389 - RIP Version 2
• ·RFC1388 - RIP Version 2