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<rfc xmlns:xi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XInclude" ipr="trust200902" docName="draft-hardaker-dnsop-root-zone-pub-list-guidelines-00" category="info" consensus="true" submissionType="IETF" tocInclude="true" sortRefs="true" symRefs="true" version="3">
  <!-- xml2rfc v2v3 conversion 3.31.0 -->
  <front>
    <title abbrev="DNS Root Zone Publication List Guidelines">Guidelines for IANA DNS Root Zone Publication List Providers</title>
    <seriesInfo name="Internet-Draft" value="draft-hardaker-dnsop-root-zone-pub-list-guidelines-00"/>
    <author fullname="Wes Hardaker">
      <organization>Google, Inc.</organization>
      <address>
        <email>ietf@hardakers.net</email>
      </address>
    </author>
    <date year="2026" month="January" day="20"/>
    <area>Operations and Management</area>
    <workgroup>Domain Name System Operations</workgroup>
    <keyword>DNS</keyword>
    <keyword>DNSSEC</keyword>
    <keyword>zone transfer</keyword>
    <keyword>axfr</keyword>
    <keyword>ixfr</keyword>
    <abstract>
      <?line 49?>

<t>This document describes guidelines for entities that wish to publish a
list of URLs from where the contents of the IANA DNS root zone may be
obtained.  These guidelines are specifically provided as guidance to
IANA, but these suggestions may be applicable to any entity wishing to
build a list of IANA DNS root zone sources for their own purposes.</t>
    </abstract>
    <note removeInRFC="true">
      <name>About This Document</name>
      <t>
        The latest revision of this draft can be found at <eref target="https://github.io/hardker/draft-hardaker-dnsop-root-zone-publication-list-guidelines/draft-hardaker-dnsop-root-zone-publication-list-guidelines.html"/>.
        Status information for this document may be found at <eref target="https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-hardaker-dnsop-root-zone-pub-list-guidelines/"/>.
      </t>
      <t>
        Discussion of this document takes place on the
        Domain Name System Operations Working Group mailing list (<eref target="mailto:dnsop@ietf.org"/>),
        which is archived at <eref target="https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/browse/dnsop/"/>.
        Subscribe at <eref target="https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/dnsop/"/>.
      </t>
      <t>Source for this draft and an issue tracker can be found at
        <eref target="https://github.com/https://github.com/hardaker/draft-hardaker-dnsop-root-zone-publication-list-guidelines"/>.</t>
    </note>
  </front>
  <middle>
    <?line 57?>

<section anchor="introduction">
      <name>Introduction</name>
      <t>This document describes guidelines for entities that wish to publish a
list of URLs from where the contents of the IANA DNS root zone may be
obtained.  These guidelines are specifically provided as guidance to
IANA, but these suggestions may be applicable to any entity wishing to
build a list of IANA DNS root zone sources for their own purposes.</t>
      <t>When implementing a LocalRoot or similar service, as described in
<xref target="draft-wkumari-dnsop-localroot-bcp"/>, the contents of the DNS root
zone need to be obtained.  Because the contents of the IANA DNS root
zone are crytographically verifiable, it may be obtained from any
source assuming integrity verification has been performed.</t>
      <t>Entities, such as IANA, will need to publish a list of acceptable
sources that LocalRoot enabled resolvers can use to routinely
fetch and serve or cache the contents of the IANA DNS root zone.
The guidelines in this document are intended to provide advice to IANA
or any other entity wishing to build such a list of sources.</t>
      <t>A separate document
<xref target="draft-hardaker-dnsop-iana-root-zone-publication-points"/> describes
the format of the IANA published list, along with IANA considerations
that request the list's publication.</t>
    </section>
    <section anchor="definitions">
      <name>Conventions and Definitions</name>
      <t>The key words "<bcp14>MUST</bcp14>", "<bcp14>MUST NOT</bcp14>", "<bcp14>REQUIRED</bcp14>", "<bcp14>SHALL</bcp14>", "<bcp14>SHALL
NOT</bcp14>", "<bcp14>SHOULD</bcp14>", "<bcp14>SHOULD NOT</bcp14>", "<bcp14>RECOMMENDED</bcp14>", "<bcp14>NOT RECOMMENDED</bcp14>",
"<bcp14>MAY</bcp14>", and "<bcp14>OPTIONAL</bcp14>" in this document are to be interpreted as
described in BCP 14 <xref target="RFC2119"/> <xref target="RFC8174"/> when, and only when, they
appear in all capitals, as shown here.</t>
      <?line -18?>

</section>
    <section anchor="guidelines-for-building-a-iana-dns-root-zone-publication-list">
      <name>Guidelines for building a IANA DNS root zone publication list</name>
      <t>The following describes the community established guidelines when
developing a list of IANA DNS root zone publication points:</t>
      <section anchor="guidelines-related-to-the-list-of-publication-points">
        <name>Guidelines related to the list of publication points</name>
        <ul spacing="normal">
          <li>
            <t>the list of publication points must be machine readable</t>
          </li>
          <li>
            <t>the list of publication points must not be limited to a particular size.</t>
          </li>
          <li>
            <t>the list of publication points should include publication points
hosted from multiple organizations.</t>
          </li>
          <li>
            <t>the list of publication points should include a service endpoint
from IANA itself.</t>
          </li>
          <li>
            <t>the list of publication points must be verifiable as complete
through the use of a cryptographic checksum.</t>
          </li>
          <li>
            <t>the list of publication points should be cryptographically
verifiable as to its origin.</t>
          </li>
          <li>
            <t>the list of publication points should include multiple protocols
that can be used for fetching the IANA root zone data.  Specifically
the list should include both https and AXFR based sources.</t>
          </li>
          <li>
            <t>each item in the list of publication points must be individually
complete and usable in isolation.</t>
          </li>
          <li>
            <t>each item in the list of publication points must be a unique URL.</t>
          </li>
          <li>
            <t>each item in the list of publication points should be routinely
verified as to its functioning status or else removed from the list.</t>
          </li>
        </ul>
      </section>
      <section anchor="guidelines-related-to-entries-in-the-list-of-publication-points">
        <name>Guidelines related to entries in the list of publication points</name>
        <ul spacing="normal">
          <li>
            <t>each publication point should make use of widely geographically
distributed service points.</t>
          </li>
          <li>
            <t>each publication point must be globally available without imposed
source-based or other filtering.</t>
          </li>
          <li>
            <t>https based publication points should offer service equivalent to
existing Content Delivery Networks (CDNs) today.</t>
          </li>
          <li>
            <t>AXFR, IXFR and XoT publication points should be as robust as the
existing DNS root servers that offer similar services today.</t>
          </li>
          <li>
            <t>each publication point should have a service level agreement,
ideally at zero cost, with IANA.</t>
          </li>
        </ul>
      </section>
    </section>
    <section anchor="security">
      <name>Security Considerations</name>
      <t>TBD</t>
    </section>
    <section anchor="iana-considerations">
      <name>IANA Considerations</name>
      <t>IANA may wish to carefully consider the suggestions in this document
when building a list of IANA DNS root zone publication points.</t>
    </section>
  </middle>
  <back>
    <references anchor="sec-combined-references">
      <name>References</name>
      <references anchor="sec-normative-references">
        <name>Normative References</name>
        <reference anchor="RFC3986">
          <front>
            <title>Uniform Resource Identifier (URI): Generic Syntax</title>
            <author fullname="T. Berners-Lee" initials="T." surname="Berners-Lee"/>
            <author fullname="R. Fielding" initials="R." surname="Fielding"/>
            <author fullname="L. Masinter" initials="L." surname="Masinter"/>
            <date month="January" year="2005"/>
            <abstract>
              <t>A Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) is a compact sequence of characters that identifies an abstract or physical resource. This specification defines the generic URI syntax and a process for resolving URI references that might be in relative form, along with guidelines and security considerations for the use of URIs on the Internet. The URI syntax defines a grammar that is a superset of all valid URIs, allowing an implementation to parse the common components of a URI reference without knowing the scheme-specific requirements of every possible identifier. This specification does not define a generative grammar for URIs; that task is performed by the individual specifications of each URI scheme. [STANDARDS-TRACK]</t>
            </abstract>
          </front>
          <seriesInfo name="STD" value="66"/>
          <seriesInfo name="RFC" value="3986"/>
          <seriesInfo name="DOI" value="10.17487/RFC3986"/>
        </reference>
        <reference anchor="RFC4395">
          <front>
            <title>Guidelines and Registration Procedures for New URI Schemes</title>
            <author fullname="T. Hansen" initials="T." surname="Hansen"/>
            <author fullname="T. Hardie" initials="T." surname="Hardie"/>
            <author fullname="L. Masinter" initials="L." surname="Masinter"/>
            <date month="February" year="2006"/>
            <abstract>
              <t>This document provides guidelines and recommendations for the definition of Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) schemes. It also updates the process and IANA registry for URI schemes. It obsoletes both RFC 2717 and RFC 2718. This document specifies an Internet Best Current Practices for the Internet Community, and requests discussion and suggestions for improvements.</t>
            </abstract>
          </front>
          <seriesInfo name="RFC" value="4395"/>
          <seriesInfo name="DOI" value="10.17487/RFC4395"/>
        </reference>
        <reference anchor="RFC5234">
          <front>
            <title>Augmented BNF for Syntax Specifications: ABNF</title>
            <author fullname="D. Crocker" initials="D." role="editor" surname="Crocker"/>
            <author fullname="P. Overell" initials="P." surname="Overell"/>
            <date month="January" year="2008"/>
            <abstract>
              <t>Internet technical specifications often need to define a formal syntax. Over the years, a modified version of Backus-Naur Form (BNF), called Augmented BNF (ABNF), has been popular among many Internet specifications. The current specification documents ABNF. It balances compactness and simplicity with reasonable representational power. The differences between standard BNF and ABNF involve naming rules, repetition, alternatives, order-independence, and value ranges. This specification also supplies additional rule definitions and encoding for a core lexical analyzer of the type common to several Internet specifications. [STANDARDS-TRACK]</t>
            </abstract>
          </front>
          <seriesInfo name="STD" value="68"/>
          <seriesInfo name="RFC" value="5234"/>
          <seriesInfo name="DOI" value="10.17487/RFC5234"/>
        </reference>
        <reference anchor="RFC5936">
          <front>
            <title>DNS Zone Transfer Protocol (AXFR)</title>
            <author fullname="E. Lewis" initials="E." surname="Lewis"/>
            <author fullname="A. Hoenes" initials="A." role="editor" surname="Hoenes"/>
            <date month="June" year="2010"/>
            <abstract>
              <t>The standard means within the Domain Name System protocol for maintaining coherence among a zone's authoritative name servers consists of three mechanisms. Authoritative Transfer (AXFR) is one of the mechanisms and is defined in RFC 1034 and RFC 1035.</t>
              <t>The definition of AXFR has proven insufficient in detail, thereby forcing implementations intended to be compliant to make assumptions, impeding interoperability. Yet today we have a satisfactory set of implementations that do interoperate. This document is a new definition of AXFR -- new in the sense that it records an accurate definition of an interoperable AXFR mechanism. [STANDARDS-TRACK]</t>
            </abstract>
          </front>
          <seriesInfo name="RFC" value="5936"/>
          <seriesInfo name="DOI" value="10.17487/RFC5936"/>
        </reference>
        <reference anchor="RFC8499">
          <front>
            <title>DNS Terminology</title>
            <author fullname="P. Hoffman" initials="P." surname="Hoffman"/>
            <author fullname="A. Sullivan" initials="A." surname="Sullivan"/>
            <author fullname="K. Fujiwara" initials="K." surname="Fujiwara"/>
            <date month="January" year="2019"/>
            <abstract>
              <t>The Domain Name System (DNS) is defined in literally dozens of different RFCs. The terminology used by implementers and developers of DNS protocols, and by operators of DNS systems, has sometimes changed in the decades since the DNS was first defined. This document gives current definitions for many of the terms used in the DNS in a single document.</t>
              <t>This document obsoletes RFC 7719 and updates RFC 2308.</t>
            </abstract>
          </front>
          <seriesInfo name="RFC" value="8499"/>
          <seriesInfo name="DOI" value="10.17487/RFC8499"/>
        </reference>
        <reference anchor="RFC9103">
          <front>
            <title>DNS Zone Transfer over TLS</title>
            <author fullname="W. Toorop" initials="W." surname="Toorop"/>
            <author fullname="S. Dickinson" initials="S." surname="Dickinson"/>
            <author fullname="S. Sahib" initials="S." surname="Sahib"/>
            <author fullname="P. Aras" initials="P." surname="Aras"/>
            <author fullname="A. Mankin" initials="A." surname="Mankin"/>
            <date month="August" year="2021"/>
            <abstract>
              <t>DNS zone transfers are transmitted in cleartext, which gives attackers the opportunity to collect the content of a zone by eavesdropping on network connections. The DNS Transaction Signature (TSIG) mechanism is specified to restrict direct zone transfer to authorized clients only, but it does not add confidentiality. This document specifies the use of TLS, rather than cleartext, to prevent zone content collection via passive monitoring of zone transfers: XFR over TLS (XoT). Additionally, this specification updates RFC 1995 and RFC 5936 with respect to efficient use of TCP connections and RFC 7766 with respect to the recommended number of connections between a client and server for each transport.</t>
            </abstract>
          </front>
          <seriesInfo name="RFC" value="9103"/>
          <seriesInfo name="DOI" value="10.17487/RFC9103"/>
        </reference>
        <reference anchor="draft-wkumari-dnsop-localroot-bcp" target="draft-hardaker-dnsop-dns-xfr-scheme">
          <front>
            <title>Running a Root Server Local to a Resolver</title>
            <author>
              <organization/>
            </author>
            <date>n.d.</date>
          </front>
        </reference>
        <reference anchor="RFC2119">
          <front>
            <title>Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate Requirement Levels</title>
            <author fullname="S. Bradner" initials="S." surname="Bradner"/>
            <date month="March" year="1997"/>
            <abstract>
              <t>In many standards track documents several words are used to signify the requirements in the specification. These words are often capitalized. This document defines these words as they should be interpreted in IETF documents. This document specifies an Internet Best Current Practices for the Internet Community, and requests discussion and suggestions for improvements.</t>
            </abstract>
          </front>
          <seriesInfo name="BCP" value="14"/>
          <seriesInfo name="RFC" value="2119"/>
          <seriesInfo name="DOI" value="10.17487/RFC2119"/>
        </reference>
        <reference anchor="RFC8174">
          <front>
            <title>Ambiguity of Uppercase vs Lowercase in RFC 2119 Key Words</title>
            <author fullname="B. Leiba" initials="B." surname="Leiba"/>
            <date month="May" year="2017"/>
            <abstract>
              <t>RFC 2119 specifies common key words that may be used in protocol specifications. This document aims to reduce the ambiguity by clarifying that only UPPERCASE usage of the key words have the defined special meanings.</t>
            </abstract>
          </front>
          <seriesInfo name="BCP" value="14"/>
          <seriesInfo name="RFC" value="8174"/>
          <seriesInfo name="DOI" value="10.17487/RFC8174"/>
        </reference>
      </references>
      <references anchor="sec-informative-references">
        <name>Informative References</name>
        <reference anchor="RFC7766">
          <front>
            <title>DNS Transport over TCP - Implementation Requirements</title>
            <author fullname="J. Dickinson" initials="J." surname="Dickinson"/>
            <author fullname="S. Dickinson" initials="S." surname="Dickinson"/>
            <author fullname="R. Bellis" initials="R." surname="Bellis"/>
            <author fullname="A. Mankin" initials="A." surname="Mankin"/>
            <author fullname="D. Wessels" initials="D." surname="Wessels"/>
            <date month="March" year="2016"/>
            <abstract>
              <t>This document specifies the requirement for support of TCP as a transport protocol for DNS implementations and provides guidelines towards DNS-over-TCP performance on par with that of DNS-over-UDP. This document obsoletes RFC 5966 and therefore updates RFC 1035 and RFC 1123.</t>
            </abstract>
          </front>
          <seriesInfo name="RFC" value="7766"/>
          <seriesInfo name="DOI" value="10.17487/RFC7766"/>
        </reference>
        <reference anchor="draft-hardaker-dnsop-iana-root-zone-publication-points" target="https://github.com/hardaker/draft-hardaker-dnsop-iana-root-zone-publication-points">
          <front>
            <title>A format for publishing a list of sources of IANA root zone data</title>
            <author>
              <organization/>
            </author>
            <date>n.d.</date>
          </front>
        </reference>
      </references>
    </references>
    <?line 167?>

<section numbered="false" anchor="acknowledgments">
      <name>Acknowledgments</name>
      <t>TBD</t>
    </section>
  </back>
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