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Date: Mon, 20 Apr 1998 15:15:49 -0500 From: Jim Fleming <JimFleming at doorstep.unety.net> Subject: FW: Structuring the Root To: "'tld-wg at ripe.net'" <tld-wg at ripe.net> To: 'arin-council at arin.net'; 'ARIN list' Cc: 'BBURR at ntia.doc.gov'; 'ietf at ns.ietf.org'; 'Ira_C._Magaziner at oa.eop.gov' Subject: Structuring the Root

Structuring the Root for the IPv4 Internet can be as simple as assigning each of the TLD authorities a section of the IPv4 address space to "manage" (not route). The IN-ADDR.ARPA zone file could be cleaned up once delegations are made in a more distributed manner. It is important to note that this methodology does not "use" all of the IPv4 addresses, it just distributes them fairly for management purposes.

Many thanks for the copy of this pretty interesting proposal! However, I'd like to place some comments on it. First off, the proposal tries to connect two administrative antipodes on the Internet today: IP address space management (which is a pure technical questin) and domain name delegations (which also have an inevitable legal component). Let's try to stress out some facts, which describe the current situation about reverse domain delegations: * IN-ADDR.ARPA delegations are (naturally) closely related to the IP address allocations/assignments, since reverse domains somewhat reflect usage of the address space, allocated to an ISP or assigned to a user. In other words, reverse domains are closely related to IP addresses used in the network - NOT to the domain names in any way! * IP address allocation/assignment process is totally independent of domain name delegations. IP address management hierarchy (IANA -> Regional IRs -> ISPs/LIRs -> End users) is a logical consequence of the hierarchy of the global routing system. At an extreme point - a ccTLD could be used for Web hosting and similar purposes only, where IP address space is not needed (take many small countries in Oceania, which sold their domains to other countries - see NU TLD, for example). * Currently, regional registries provide IN-ADDR.ARPA delegations for all IP blocks they allocate to the ISPs/LIRs. The ISPs are, apparently, responsible for proper visibility of the reverse domains for the IP address space assigned to their end users. The scheme you proposed, on the other hand, has several deficiencies. First (the minor one) - the table is constrained to 256 TLDs - how ca you predict that it won't be more than 256 TLDs in the future? Like Brian Carpenter said in the RFC 2058, "the principle of constant change is perhaps the only principle of the Internet that should survive indefinitely". The second one (more important) is the question of responsibility: an ISP, assigning an IP network to end user is responsible for its rouitng and reverse domain mapping. Why? Because the user pays for that service! Now, the regional IR, allocating an IP block to the ISP is responsible for its IN-ADDR.ARPA delegation. Why? Because the ISP pays to the regional IR for the service they receive (IP address allocations and reverse domain name delegations). Now, with the transition you proposed, a user would have to delegate their reverse domains to a regional registry of a country which does not have anything to do with them. The following situation might arise: an ISP receives three independent allocations from the IRs. Now, part of their users would have to delegate their addresses with, say, TLD of Fiji (FJ), the other will have to ask the TLD of Cyprus (CY), the third group will have to go to the Russian (RU) TLD. And - all ISPs are located, say, in the USA! Funny, isn't it? The other side of the medal: suppose that your company, some university or - even Whitehouse or United Nations, received address space which has to be delegated by the TLD registrar of Western Samoa, since the digits in the IP addresses point to that registrar. Suppose Western Samoa TLD DNS servers fail. Who are you going to blame? Western Samoa TLD NIC? Their government? The current bottom-up structure of IN-ADDR.ARPA delegation might not be the best solution achievable today! But that's all we have today ... which does not mean it cannot change tomorrow! ;-) Best regards, Beri .-------. | --+-- | Berislav Todorovic, B.Sc.E.E. | E-mail: BERI at etf.bg.ac.yu | /|\ Hostmaster of the YU TLD | |-(-+-)-| School of Electrical Engineering | Phone: (+381-11) 3221-419 | \|/ Bulevar Revolucije 73 | 3370-106 | --+-- | 11000 Belgrade SERBIA, YUGOSLAVIA | Fax: (+381-11) 3248-681 `-------' -------------------------------------------------------------------- -------- Logged at Mon Apr 20 23:57:34 MET DST 1998 ---------