Subject: [DNSOP] New I-D: Transparent Handling of IDNs in Name Resolution APIs (draft-rodenhaeuser-idna-transparent-resolution-00)
From: Ótzï fón GlüϷgor <[email-masked]>
To: "[email-masked]" <[email-masked]>
Cc: "[email-masked]" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 18 Jul 2026 23:33:15 +0000
List-Id: IETF DNSOP WG mailing list <dnsop.ietf.org>

Dear DISPATCH,

I have submitted a new individual Internet-Draft and would appreciate
the group's guidance on where it should be progressed.

  draft-rodenhaeuser-idna-transparent-resolution-00
  https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-rodenhaeuser-idna-transparent-resolution/

The draft addresses the inconsistent handling of internationalized
domain names at the name-resolution boundary. Because applications are
expected to convert U-labels to A-labels before calling resolution
APIs, that conversion is today performed by many different components
following different IDNA standards, using different libraries, and
shipping different versions of the Unicode mapping tables. As a result,
the same input can resolve to different registrable domains depending
on which component converts it. For example, "STRAẞE.de" is converted
to "strasse.de" by a stack whose tables predate Unicode 15.1 and to
"xn--strae-oqa.de" by a current one -- two independently registrable
names, on one host.

The draft specifies that name resolution services accept Unicode by
default and convert exactly once, at the point where a name is handed
to a specific protocol. The wire format is unchanged (A-labels for the
public DNS); the procedure is UTS #46 nontransitional with a Unicode
15.1 table floor. This is not new architecture: RFC 6055 recommended
precisely this placement of the conversion in 2011, and Windows,
systemd-resolved, and the browser platforms already convert by default.
The draft therefore aims to codify deployed practice, which is why it
targets BCP.

My sense is that the natural home is DNSOP, with an internationalization
review; I am raising it here first for triage. I would welcome any
review, and I have noted dnsop@ as a venue for DNS-specific discussion
in the draft.

Thank you,
Luca Rodenhäuser