Here is the response we received from Doug Barton to the questions that we asked. I'm still confused. It's not clear to me what problem has been fixed or if IANA will now permit TLD delegations to include hostnames that have the same IP address as existing hostnames in the root zone. I've asked Doug for clarification: a clear statement whether this is or isn't permitted. I'll keep you informed of developments. Stay tuned.... Begin forwarded message:

From: Doug Barton <doug.barton@icann.org> Date: May 21, 2005 04:09:03 BST To: Jim Reid <jim@rfc1035.com> Cc: Barbara Roseman <barbara.roseman@iana.org>, iana@iana.org, Daniel <dfk@ripe.net>, Mohsen Souissi <Mohsen.Souissi@nic.fr>, Jaap Akkerhuis <jaap@nlnetlabs.nl>, "Olaf M. Kolkman" <olaf@ripe.net>, Lars-Johan Liman <liman@autonomica.se>, Peter Koch <pk@denic.de>, Olivier Guillard <Olivier.Guillard@nic.fr>, philippe.lubrano@nic.fr Subject: Re: Questions on IANA TLD Operations

Jim,

Thank you for raising this issue, my response is below. Please let me know if you intend to forward this to the WG. Otherwise I am happy to do so.

In November of 2004 IANA received a request from AFNIC to add new hostnames for IP addresses of name servers that already existed in the root zone. While there were a few examples of this already in the zone, this type of request is rare, and produced an unexpected result. ICANN has been informed that this problem is now permanently fixed.

Because at the time AFNIC submitted the recent request for modifications to the RE ccTLD IANA had not yet been informed that the problem was fixed, we asked them to choose a method of reaching their operational goals other than adding new instances of the hostnames that resolve to the same IP address. Because the problem is now fixed, this will not be necessary in the future.

I'm sorry that I did not get a chance to discuss these issues with you in person at the Stockholm meeting, as you noted I was called home suddenly for personal reasons. I do appreciate this opportunity to explain the issues involved, and I look forward to discussing it with you further if you so desire.

Kind Regards,

Doug

-- Doug Barton General Manager, The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority

Jim Reid wrote:

...

Apologies in advance for the cast of thousands on this message... I'm sending this on behalf of the co-chairs of the RIPE DNS Working Group in response to a discussion during RIPE50 last week. Dear Colleagues, This note follows a discussion at the DNS Working Group during last week's RIPE meeting. Doug was unable to take part in this discussion because he was called away early. Therefore we have sent you this message so that we can clear up any possible misunderstandings and hopefully avoid invoking more formal mechanisms. The RIPE DNS Working Group is concerned about some aspects of the current practice regarding IANA TLD operations. In particular the problems encountered by AFNIC last month are unsettling. It is our understanding that IANA has recently stopped accepting certain updates to the DNS root zone. The current practice now appears to require each particular network address used in glue address RRs to have one unique DNS name. This requirement is new: multiple names already exist in the root zone for some name server addresses. There is no technical reason in the DNS protocols preventing this practice. Important technical and operational goals can require TLD operators to use different names for the same address. The most obvious of these is more efficient name compression to make room for additional data in responses. Multiple names for the same address can reduce the amount of co-ordination required in case of name server address changes. We do not understand why this requirement has been introduced or the process by which it was agreed. The RIPE DNS Working Group is disappointed that this change appears to have been carried out by IANA without prior consultation or discussion. We would like to know rationale for this policy and the mechanism which led to its introduction. We'd appreciate any clarifications from you before Friday, May 20th. Regards ..... chairs RIPE DNS WG