[DNSOP] Re: [EXTERNAL] Re: [Ext] Re: Call for Adoption: draft-davies-internal-tld

[Suzanne Woolf <[e-mail]>]

Hi,

At the moment, the only reason I can see to adopt this draft is to provide information about something ICANN/IANA did (reserve .internal from “normal” delegation to a registry operator to create and maintain SLDs under it). It makes sense to me that we do it in an RFC for the benefit of DNS operators and implementers, who should know about this decision by ICANN regarding the operation of the root zone, and which they might not stumble over otherwise. (I think David Conrad said this better about 100 messages ago….)

There’s a reasonable set of technical questions around DNSSEC, a possible root zone DNS delegation to allow for specific behavior, and so on. If DNSOP, SSAC, or anyone else wants to express an opinion to ICANN about whether or how .internal should have a DNS delegation in the root zone, there are several ways to do it, but it’s ICANN’s call what advice to take, if any.

On Apr 23, 2025, at 12:19, Jim Reid <[e-mail]> wrote:


On 23 Apr 2025, at 16:16, Peter Thomassen <peter=[e-mail]> wrote:

That said, I think it would still be a good idea to invoke the liaison and ask about ICANN's view on this (potential?) mistake, and how their definition of "delegation" (to NS? to registry?) plays into this. What's the process for such an interaction?

I think that'll be a bad idea Peter. IMO it'll just create a lot of hot air and burn too many cycles on mostly pointless make-work: bickering over what its meant by "delegation" for instance. Or developing/extending process machinery that's unlikely to be used all that often.

The WG should be able to apply common sense and treat these SUDN requests on a case-by-case basis. Anything fancier can wait until the number and frequency of these requests justifies an exercise in process engineering.

I agree with the sentiment but there’s no SUDN request here and no need to create one.

As I tried to say up-thread, there’s existing correspondence between the ICANN CEO and the IAB/IETF chairs from 2020 that sets an expectation that IANA will add .internal to ICANN’s own list of reserved domains. (See https://datatracker.ietf.org/liaison/1706/) It also explicitly says that having “.internal” in the ICANN-controlled “reserved” registry leads to an expectation that the same string *won’t* be reserved by the IETF as an SUDN.

The IETF and IAB chairs aren’t the boss of anybody in particular, but I think that plan makes sense.

To me, the bottom line:

1. With the SUDN question put aside, is it worth publishing this draft as Informational? Yes.

2. Does the WG have some consensus technical advice to give regarding whether and how .internal should have a DNS delegation in the root zone? I don’t know, but that’s a separate matter; if SSAC wants to clarify their advice, or DNSOP wants to be on the record with specific concerns about implementation, that can be coordinated with the respective liaisons to the ICANN Board, and to ICANN and IANA staff. If that results in more detailed information that IANA wants to include in the RFC, so much the better.


Suzanne