RFC1811 - U.S

Network Working Group Federal Networking Council

Request For Comments: 1811 June 1995

Category: Informational

U.S. Government Internet Domain Names

Status of this Memo

This memo provides information for the Internet community. This memo

does not specify an Internet standard of any kind. Distribution of

this memo is unlimited.

Abstract

This document describes the registration policies for the top-level

domain ".GOV". Thus far, Federal Agencies and their subsidiaries

have registered without any guidance. This has resulted in multiple

registrations for Federal Agencies and naming schemes that do not

facilitate responsiveness to the public. This document fixes this by

restricting registrations to coincide with the approved strUCture of

the US government. The document cited, FIPS 95-1, provides a

standard recognized structure into which domain registrations for

top-level domains. The IANA requires that an organization/country

apply for and get a 2 letter code from ISO/ITU (e.g., US for United

States) for additional top-level registration.

As a side effect, this reduces the number of .GOV level registrations

and reduces the workload on the Internic.

U.S. GOVERNMENT INTERNET DOMAIN NAMES POLICY

The .GOV domain is delegated from the root authority to the US

Federal Networking Council. The .GOV domain is for registration of

US governmental entities on the federal level only. Registrations

for state and local governmental agencies shall be made under the .US

domain in accordance with the policies for that domain.

1) The document "Codes for the Identification of Federal and

Federally Assisted Organizations", FIPS 95-1 (or its successor)

lists the official names of US Government agencies.

A) Top-level entities (e.g., those with codes ending in 00 such as

"1200 Department of Agriculture"), and independent agencies and

organizations (e.g., "National Science Foundation and other non-

indented listings unless prohibited below) as listed in this

document are eligible for registration directly under .GOV.

B) Autonomous law enforcement components of top-level entities

(e.g., "Federal Bureau of Investigation", "Secret Service", "Coast

Guard") are also eligible for registration.

C) Cross-agency collaborative organizations (e.g., "Federal

Networking Council", "Information Infrastructure Task Force") are

eligible for registration under .GOV upon presentation of the

chartering document and are the only non-FIPS-listed

organizations eligible for registration under .GOV.

D) Subsidiary, non-autonomous components of top-level or other

entities are not eligible for separate registration.

International organizations listed in this document are NOT

eligible for registration under .GOV.

E) Organizations listed as "Federally Aided Organizations" are not

eligible for registration under .GOV and should register under

.ORG or other appropriate top-level domain.

F) Organizations subsidiary to "Department of Defense" must

register under the ".MIL" domain via the Defense Data Network

Network Information Center - contact registrar@nic.ddn.mil.

The only standard exceptions to these rules are changes to

governmental structure due to statutory, regulatory or executive

directives not yet reflected in the above document. The requesting

agency should provide documentation in one of the above forms to

request an exception. Other requests for exception should be

referred to the Federal Networking Council.

2) A domain name should be derived from the official name for the

organization (e.g., "USDA.Gov" or "Agriculture.GOV".) The

registration shall be listed in the registration database under the

official name (per FIPS 95-1) for the organization or under the name

in the chartering document.

3) Only ONE registration and delegation shall be made per agency.

The .GOV registration authority shall provide registrations on a

first-come first-served basis. It is an individual agency matter as

to which portion of the agency is responsible for managing the domain

space under a delegated agency domain.

4) Those agencies and entities that have multiple registrations under

.GOV may retain them for a maximum of 3 years from the publication

date of this document. Within 6 months after the publication of this

document, one primary domain must be selected for the agency. The

other (secondary) domains must cease further sub-delegations and

registrations at this time. As of 1 year after the publication of

this document, the secondary domains will become undelegated and will

revert to the control of the .GOV owner. As of 2 years after the

publication of this document, all registrations in the secondary

domains must be mirrored in the primary domain and those names should

be used where possible. At the 3 year point, all secondary domain

registrations will be deleted.

5) Those agencies and entities already registered in .GOV but not

listed in FIPS 95-1 (e.g., DOE labs, state entities) may retain their

registration within the constraint of the single registration rule

(see para 4). No further non-FIPS-listed registrations will be made.

State and local entities are strongly encouraged to re-register under

.US, but this is not mandatory.

References

[1] Federal Information Processing Standards Publication 95-1 (FIPS

PUB 95-1, "Codes for the Identification of Feral and Federally

Assisted Organizations", U.S. Department of Commerce, National

Institute of Standards and Technology, January 4, 1993.

[2] Postel, J., "Domain Name System Structure and Delegation", RFC

1591, USC/Information Sciences Institute, March 1994.

Security Considerations

Security issues are not discussed in this memo.

Author's Address

Federal Networking Council

4001 N. Fairfax Drive

Arlington, VA 22203

Phone: (703) 522-6410