RFC 7085

RFC 7085: Top-Level Domains That Are Already Dotless 🎀

okay bestie, let's get into this one 💅 it's an Independent Submission (so not a standards-track thing, just vibes and data) by John Levine of Taughannock Networks and Paul Hoffman of the Cybersecurity Association, published in December 2013. It's Informational ✨, which means it's here to inform, not to be implemented. It doesn't obsolete or update any other RFCs, so it's a solo main character 🦋

The Status of This Memo says this is not an Internet Standards Track spec, it's a contribution to the RFC Series, and the RFC Editor makes no statement about its value for implementation or deployment. Documents approved by the RFC Editor aren't candidates for any Internet Standard level, see Section 2 of RFC 5741. Errata and feedback live at http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7085 🌸

The Copyright Notice is the standard IETF Trust stuff: Copyright (c) 2013 IETF Trust and the document authors, all rights reserved, subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal Provisions Relating to IETF Documents (http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the publication date 🫶

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Table of Contents 📋

1.  Introduction  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   2
2.  Current Dotless Domains . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
  2.1.  TLDs with A Records . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
  2.2.  TLDs with AAAA Records  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
  2.3.  TLDs with MX Records  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
3.  IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
4.  Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
5.  Acknowledgements  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
6.  Informative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
Appendix A.  Script for Finding Dotless Domains . . . . . . . . .   6

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Abstract ✨

okay so the vibe is: the IAB and ICANN's SSAC have been stressing about the DNS having problems with top-level domains that hold address records (aka "dotless domains") 😬 this doc is like a researcher's cheat sheet. It lists the dotless TLDs that exist right now and gives a script so you can go find more. It's data only, not policy or tech debate. For that drama, you go read what the other groups said 💜

1. Introduction 🎀

so, well-respected groups have been putting out docs about TLDs in the DNS with address records. SSAC of ICANN wrote "Report on Dotless Domains" [SAC053] in February 2012 🙈 the IAB dropped "Dotless Domains Considered Harmful" [IAB-DOTLESS] in July 2013 💀 and the NGPC of the ICANN Board approved a resolution on dotless domains [NGPC-DOTLESS] in August 2013. Also, the authors are NOT on the SSAC, the IAB, or the ICANN Board, just so we're clear 🙅‍♀️

Here's the tea: all those docs talk about what dotless domains do without showing how many are actually out there 👀 so this one gives you the known dotless domains at publication time, plus how to find them later. In this doc, any TLD with an A, AAAA, and/or MX record at the apex counts as dotless ✨ and it's current data for the community, not advice, no lectures here 🫶

Lots of people think ICANN bans every TLD from being dotless. That's not true! ICANN's policies only cover their contracted TLDs 🌈 this doc just shows how common dotless domains actually are right now 🍓

2. Current Dotless Domains 💖

this section shows what the script in Appendix A found on September 3, 2013. The data stayed basically the same for months, with very few records added or removed 🦋

we checked every TLD in the root zone for A, AAAA, or MX records. Turns out about 5% of TLDs have them, and every single one is either a two-letter TLD or a country code TLD (ccTLD) 💅

2.1. TLDs with A Records 🌸

at publication time, these TLDs have A records:

AC has address 193.223.78.210
AI has address 209.59.119.34
CM has address 195.24.205.60
DK has address 193.163.102.24
GG has address 87.117.196.80
IO has address 193.223.78.212
je has address 87.117.196.80
KH has address 203.223.32.21
PN has address 80.68.93.100
SH has address 193.223.78.211
TK has address 217.119.57.22
TM has address 193.223.78.213
TO has address 216.74.32.107
UZ has address 91.212.89.8
VI has address 193.0.0.198
WS has address 64.70.19.33

2.2. TLDs with AAAA Records 🧚

at publication time, just one TLD has an AAAA record 👑

DK has IPv6 address 2a01:630:0:40:b1a:b1a:2011:1

2.3. TLDs with MX Records 💜

at publication time, these TLDs have MX records. Real talk: the SSAC report kinda implies MX records would make a TLD dotless, but doesn't say it outright 🤷‍♀️ and the IAB report doesn't mention MX records at all 💀

AI mail is handled by 10 mail.offshore.AI.
AX mail is handled by 5 mail.aland.net.
CF mail is handled by 0 mail.intnet.CF.
DM mail is handled by 10 mail.nic.DM.
GP mail is handled by 10 ns1.worldsatelliteservices.com.
GP mail is handled by 5 ns1.nic.GP.
GT mail is handled by 10 ASPMX.L.GOOGLE.COM.
GT mail is handled by 20 ALT1.ASPMX.L.GOOGLE.COM.
GT mail is handled by 20 ALT2.ASPMX.L.GOOGLE.COM.
GT mail is handled by 30 ASPMX2.GOOGLEMAIL.COM.
GT mail is handled by 30 ASPMX3.GOOGLEMAIL.COM.
GT mail is handled by 30 ASPMX4.GOOGLEMAIL.COM.
GT mail is handled by 30 ASPMX5.GOOGLEMAIL.COM.
HR mail is handled by 5 alpha.carnet.HR.
IO mail is handled by 10 mailer2.IO.
KH mail is handled by 10 ns1.dns.net.KH.
KM mail is handled by 100 mail1.comorestelecom.KM.
LK mail is handled by 10 malithi-slt.nic.LK.
LK mail is handled by 20 malithi-lc.nic.LK.
MQ mail is handled by 10 mx1-mq.mediaserv.net.
PA mail is handled by 5 ns.PA.
TT mail is handled by 10 ALT1.ASPMX.L.GOOGLE.COM.
TT mail is handled by 1 ASPMX.L.GOOGLE.COM.
UA mail is handled by 10 mr.kolo.net.
VA mail is handled by 100 raphaelmx3.posta.VA.
VA mail is handled by 10 raphaelmx1.posta.VA.
VA mail is handled by 10 raphaelmx2.posta.VA.
WS mail is handled by 10 mail.worldsite.WS.
YE mail is handled by 10 mail.yemen.net.YE.

3. IANA Considerations 🌈

okay so the script in Appendix A depends on IANA continuing to publish a copy of the root zone TLDs at <http://data.iana.org/TLD/tlds-alpha-by-domain.txt> 🫶

4. Security Considerations 🔥

this doc lists the known dotless domains, but it does NOT give an opinion on whether dotless domains have security considerations 😳 the IAB and SSAC reports talk about what those bodies think about the security and stability side of things, so go read those 💜

5. Acknowledgements 🎀

big thanks to Andrew Sullivan and Marc Blanchet for helpful comments on this doc 🫶🌸

6. Informative References 📚

[IAB-DOTLESS] Internet Architecture Board, "Dotless Domains Considered Harmful", July 2013, <https://www.iab.org/2013/07/10/iab-statement-dotless-domains-considered-harmful/>.

[NGPC-DOTLESS] New gTLD Program Committee of the ICANN Board, "Approved Resolution on Dotless Domains", September 2013, <http://www.icann.org/en/groups/board/documents/resolutions-new-gtld-13aug13-en.htm>.

[SAC053] ICANN Security and Stability Advisory Committee, "SSAC Report on Dotless Domains", February 2012, <http://www.icann.org/en/groups/ssac/documents/sac-053-en.pdf>.

Appendix A. Script for Finding Dotless Domains 🧚‍♀️

this Bourne shell script is what found the data in this doc. The authors think it'll work on a bunch of different OSes and keep working for the foreseeable future 🔮 BUT, as is the custom in today's legal climate, they make NO promise that it's correct or that it won't cause damage on a system where you run it ⚠️

the script checks each nameserver for each TLD instead of doing one simple query, because some TLDs' nameservers have inconsistent data about these records 🙈

#! /bin/sh
# Get the current list of TLDs from IANA
wget -O orig.txt http://data.iana.org/TLD/tlds-alpha-by-domain.txt
# Remove the comment at the top of the file
grep -v '^#' orig.txt > TLDs.txt
# Get all the nameservers
while read tld; do host -t NS $tld; done < TLDs.txt > TLD-servers.txt
# Do queries for each record type, and do them on each nameserver
for rec in A AAAA MX; do
  while read tld ignorea ignoreb ns; do
    host -t $rec $tld. $ns;
  done < TLD-servers.txt;
done > all-out.txt
# Print the results
grep "has address" all-out.txt | sort -uf
grep "has IPv6" all-out.txt | sort -uf
grep "mail is handled" all-out.txt | sort -uf

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Authors' Addresses 💌

John Levine Taughannock Networks

EMail: standards@taugh.com

Paul Hoffman Cybersecurity Association

EMail: paul.hoffman@cybersecurity.org