Network Working Group J. Abley Internet-Draft ICANN Updates: 3172 (if approved) O. Gudmundsson Intended status: BCP OGUD Consulting LLC Expires: November 12, 2009 May 11, 2009 The Eternal Non-Existence of SINK.ARPA (and other stories) draft-jabley-sink-arpa-00 Status of this Memo This Internet-Draft is submitted to IETF in full conformance with the provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79. Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), its areas, and its working groups. Note that other groups may also distribute working documents as Internet- Drafts. Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any time. It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference material or to cite them other than as "work in progress." The list of current Internet-Drafts can be accessed at http://www.ietf.org/ietf/1id-abstracts.txt. The list of Internet-Draft Shadow Directories can be accessed at http://www.ietf.org/shadow.html. This Internet-Draft will expire on November 12, 2009. Copyright Notice Copyright (c) 2009 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the document authors. All rights reserved. This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal Provisions Relating to IETF Documents in effect on the date of publication of this document (http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info). Please review these documents carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect to this document. Abley & Gudmundsson Expires November 12, 2009 [Page 1] Internet-Draft The Eternal Non-Existence of SINK.ARPA May 2009 Abstract This document specifies a fully-qualified domain name in the Domain Name System (DNS) that can be relied upon never to exist. The availability of a name in the DNS which is guaranteed not to exist has useful operational applications. This document also provides a procedural framework for other names that have special characteristics to be reserved, and for those special characteristics to codified as modifications to the normal ARPA administration process. Abley & Gudmundsson Expires November 12, 2009 [Page 2] Internet-Draft The Eternal Non-Existence of SINK.ARPA May 2009 1. Introduction The Domain Name System (DNS) is described in [RFC1034] and [RFC1035]. This document has three purposes: 1. to create a new IANA registry called "ARPA Reserved Names" (see Section 3); 2. to define the special considerations of a single name SINK.ARPA, a name which is defined never to exist (see Section 2); 3. to allow the procedures by which the ARPA zone is maintained, as documented in [RFC3172], to be modified for names present in the ARPA Reserved Names registry according to the special characteristics of those names (see Section 4). Abley & Gudmundsson Expires November 12, 2009 [Page 3] Internet-Draft The Eternal Non-Existence of SINK.ARPA May 2009 2. SINK.ARPA The special considerations for the name SINK.ARPA are that the name SINK.ARPA shall be guaranteed never to have any resource records associated with it. That is, the domain does not exist and queries for it will result in name errors (NXDOMAIN). The reliable non- existence of a globally-consistent and formally-defined name has some operational utility. Various top-level domains are reserved by [RFC2606], including "INVALID". The use of "INVALID" as a codified, non-existant domain was considered. However: o INVALID is poorly characterised from a DNS perspective in [RFC2606]; that is, the specification that INVALID does not exist as a Top Level Domain (TLD) is imprecise given the various uses of the term TLD in policy forums; o the contents of the root zone are derived by interaction with many inter-related policy-making bodies, whereas the administrative and technical processes relating to the ARPA zone are much more clearly defined in an IETF context; o the use of ARPA for purposes of operational infrastructure (and, by inference, the explicit non-use of a particular name in ARPA) is consistent with the purpose of that zone, as described in [RFC3172]. This document specifies that any request which would cause the name SINK.ARPA to exist in the DNS should be denied. Abley & Gudmundsson Expires November 12, 2009 [Page 4] Internet-Draft The Eternal Non-Existence of SINK.ARPA May 2009 3. IANA Considerations This document directs the IANA to create a registry as follows: +-------------------------+----------------------------------------+ | Parameter | Value | +-------------------------+----------------------------------------+ | Registry Name | ARPA Reserved Names | | | | | Reference | This document (RFCXXXX) Section 5 | | | | | Registration Procedures | IETF Standards Action and IAB approval | +-------------------------+----------------------------------------+ The initial registry contents should be as follows: +-----------+----------------------+---------+----------------------+ | Name | Purpose | RRTypes | Reference | +-----------+----------------------+---------+----------------------+ | SINK.ARPA | Definitively | NONE | This document | | | non-existant name | | (RFCXXXX) Section 2 | +-----------+----------------------+---------+----------------------+ Abley & Gudmundsson Expires November 12, 2009 [Page 5] Internet-Draft The Eternal Non-Existence of SINK.ARPA May 2009 4. Administration of the ARPA Domain The management guidelines and operational requirements of the ARPA domain is described in [RFC3172]. Requests to modify the ARPA zone are specified in standards-track documents which, when approved by the IESG and the IAB are sent to the IANA for implementation. This document updates the procedures described in that document as follows: 4.1. Criteria for "arpa" Sub-domains Names which are included in the IANA registry "ARPA Reserved Names" are reserved and require special consideration. The nature of that special consideration is specified by reference within the ARPA Reserved Names registry. Abley & Gudmundsson Expires November 12, 2009 [Page 6] Internet-Draft The Eternal Non-Existence of SINK.ARPA May 2009 5. IAB Considerations IAB review and approval of this document is required, given the IAB's technical and administrative function in the approval of changes to the ARPA zone. Abley & Gudmundsson Expires November 12, 2009 [Page 7] Internet-Draft The Eternal Non-Existence of SINK.ARPA May 2009 6. Security Considerations This document institutionalises a single name in the DNS to which unwanted traffic can be directed. This name, SINK.ARPA, is specified in this document not to exist in the DNS. If address records for SINK.ARPA were to be introduced by exploiting insecurities in the DNS, however, then those addresses would receive that unwanted traffic. This might provide a leak of private information to a third party, or have other unwelcome consequences. The non-existence of SINK.ARPA will be cryptographically verifiable when the ARPA zone is signed. Abley & Gudmundsson Expires November 12, 2009 [Page 8] Internet-Draft The Eternal Non-Existence of SINK.ARPA May 2009 7. Normative References [RFC1034] Mockapetris, P., "Domain names - concepts and facilities", STD 13, RFC 1034, November 1987. [RFC1035] Mockapetris, P., "Domain names - implementation and specification", STD 13, RFC 1035, November 1987. [RFC2606] Eastlake, D. and A. Panitz, "Reserved Top Level DNS Names", BCP 32, RFC 2606, June 1999. [RFC3172] Huston, G., "Management Guidelines & Operational Requirements for the Address and Routing Parameter Area Domain ("arpa")", BCP 52, RFC 3172, September 2001. Abley & Gudmundsson Expires November 12, 2009 [Page 9] Internet-Draft The Eternal Non-Existence of SINK.ARPA May 2009 Appendix A. Editorial Notes This section (and sub-sections) to be removed prior to publication. A.1. On the name SINK.ARPA The name SINK.ARPA has been chosen as an editorial convenience: having a name is more convenient than not having a name when discussing the general proposal. No doubt other names would do the job just as well. A.2. Change History 00 Initial draft. Abley & Gudmundsson Expires November 12, 2009 [Page 10] Internet-Draft The Eternal Non-Existence of SINK.ARPA May 2009 Authors' Addresses Joe Abley ICANN 4676 Admiralty Way, Suite 330 Marina del Rey, CA 90292 USA Phone: +1 519 670 9327 Email: joe.abley@icann.org Olafur Gudmundsson OGUD Consulting LLC 3821 Village Park Dr., NW Washington, DC 20015 USA Email: ogud@ogud.com Abley & Gudmundsson Expires November 12, 2009 [Page 11]