RFC 7485
Inventory and Analysis of WHOIS Registration Objects
Inventory and Analysis of WHOIS Registration Objects 🎀
Okay bestie, this is RFC 7485, an IETF doc from March 2015 🌸 Here's the title-block tea:
- It's an Informational doc, so it's published for info and isn't a Standards Track spec 📚
- Authors: L. Zhou, N. Kong, S. Shen (CNNIC), S. Sheng (ICANN), and A. Servin (LACNIC) 🫶
- ISSN: 2070-1721 ✨
- It doesn't list anything it obsoletes or updates, so it's just vibing on its own 💅
Abstract 🦋
Okay so the vibe here is that WHOIS output objects from registries got collected and analyzed. That includes both Regional Internet Registries (RIRs) and Domain Name Registries (DNRs) 👀 This doc walks through how the analysis was done and what it found. The whole point is to build an object inventory so people can talk about the data objects inside Registration Data Access Protocol (RDAP) responses. It's giving research era 🔬
Status of This Memo 🧚
Not an Internet Standards Track spec, just published for info purposes, so no pressure 🌈
This is an IETF product that reflects the consensus of the IETF community. It got public review and was approved for publication by the Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG). Not every IESG-approved doc is a candidate for any level of Internet Standard, so check Section 2 of RFC 5741 if you want the full story 🙈
Want the current status, any errata, or a way to send feedback? Go to http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7485 💜
Copyright Notice 💖
Copyright (c) 2015 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the document authors. All rights reserved.
This doc is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal Provisions Relating to IETF Documents (http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) as they stood on the publication date. Read them carefully, because they spell out your rights and restrictions for this doc. Code Components pulled out of this doc must include Simplified BSD License text, as described in Section 4.e of the Trust Legal Provisions, and they come without warranty as described in the Simplified BSD License 🔥
Table of Contents 🍓
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2. Terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
3. Methodology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
4. RIR Objects Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
4.1. WHOIS Data for Organizations Holding a Resource . . . . . 7
4.2. WHOIS Data for Contacts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
4.3. WHOIS Data for IP Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
4.4. WHOIS Data for ASNs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
4.5. Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
5. DNR Object Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
5.1. Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
5.2. Public Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
5.2.1. WHOIS Data for Domains . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
5.2.2. WHOIS Data for Contacts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
5.2.2.1. Registrant . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
5.2.2.2. Admin Contact . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
5.2.2.3. Tech Contact . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
5.2.2.4. Billing Contact . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
5.2.3. WHOIS Data for Nameservers . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
5.2.4. WHOIS Data for Registrars . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
5.3. Other Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
5.4. Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
5.4.1. Preliminary Statistics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
5.4.2. Data Element Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
5.4.3. Label Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
5.4.4. Analysis of Other Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
5.5. Limitations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
6. Reference Extension Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
6.1. RIR Reference Extension Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
6.2. DNR Reference Extension Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
7. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
8. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 321. Introduction 🌸
Okay so RIRs and DNRs have historically run a lookup service so the public can see some of the registry database 👀 Most registries do this through the WHOIS protocol [RFC3912]. Some also offer extra stuff through web pages, bulk downloads, and other services, like Routing Policy Specification Language (RPSL) [RFC2622] 🫶
WHOIS is super widely adopted, but it has some shortcomings that make it less useful for what the internet community needs now. Specifically:
- It has no query and response format. 💀
- It doesn't support user authentication or access control for differentiated access. 🙈
- It hasn't been internationalized, so it doesn't consistently support Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs) as described in [RFC5890]. 😭
This doc records an inventory of registry data objects so people can have discussions about registration data objects. The Registration Data Access Protocol (RDAP) ([RFC7480], [RFC7482], [RFC7483], and [RFC7484]) was built using this inventory as input ✨
On the number side, there were five RIRs. All of them gave info about IP addresses, Autonomous System Numbers (ASNs), and contacts, but each RIR had its own data model 🌈 On the domain side, when this doc was published there were over 200 country code Top-Level Domains (ccTLDs) and over 400 generic Top-Level Domains (gTLDs). Different Domain Name Registries may have different WHOIS response objects and formats. Getting a shared understanding of all these formats was critical so people could build one single data model for each object 🧚
This doc describes how the WHOIS data was collected and gives an inventory analysis of data objects based on what came back from the five RIRs, 106 ccTLDs, and 18 gTLDs from DNRs. The RIR data objects are sorted by the five RIRs into IP address, ASN, person or contact, and the organization that held the resource. Following SPECIFICATION 4 ("SPECIFICATION FOR REGISTRATION DATA PUBLICATION SERVICES") of the new gTLD applicant guidebook [ICANN.AGB-201206] and the Extensible Provisioning Protocol (EPP) ([RFC5730], [RFC5731], [RFC5732], and [RFC5733]), the DNR data objects are sorted by whether they relate to the domain, contact, nameserver, or registrar. Anything that doesn't fit those categories is treated as a privately specified object 💅 This doc doesn't try to analyze every query and response type in RIRs and DNRs. It covers the most common query objects. Other objects, like the RPSL data structures used by Internet Routing Registries (IRRs), can be documented later if the community feels it's necessary 🦋
2. Terminology 💜
- Data element - The name of a specific response object. 🎀
- Label - The name given to a particular data element; it may vary between registries. 🍓
- Most popular label - The label that is most supported by the registries. 👑
- Number of labels - The number of different labels. ✨
- No. of TLDs - The number of registries that support a certain data element. 🌈
3. Methodology 🧚
WHOIS info, including port 43 response data and web response data, was collected between July 9, 2012, and July 20, 2012. It went down like this 📚
Start with the RIR side:
- First, find the RIR WHOIS servers of the five RIRs, which are AFRINIC, APNIC, ARIN, LACNIC, and RIPE NCC. All the RIRs provide info about IP addresses, ASNs, and contacts. 🌸
- Query the matching IP addresses, ASNs, contacts, and organizations registered in the five RIRs. Then compare the response data. 🔍
- Group together the data elements that mean the same thing but use different labels. 🫶
DNR object collection process:
- A programming script was used to collect port 43 response data from 294 ccTLDs.
nic.ccTLDwas used as the query string, which is usually registered in a domain registry. Responses came back for 106 ccTLDs. Port 43 response data for 18 gTLDs was collected from their contracts with ICANN. So the sample size of port 43 WHOIS response data is 124 registries in total. 💖 - WHOIS data from the web was collected manually from the 124 registries that send port 43 WHOIS responses. 🖥️
- Some of the responses collected by the program didn't seem right, so data for the top 10 ccTLD registries, like
.de,.eu, and.uk, was re-verified by querying domain names other thannic.ccTLD. 🕵️ - Following SPECIFICATION 4 of the new gTLD applicant guidebook [ICANN.AGB-201206] and EPP ([RFC5730], [RFC5731], [RFC5732] and [RFC5733]), the response data objects were sorted into public and other data objects. Public data objects are the ones defined in the references above. Other objects are privately specified data elements or objects in different registries. 🔥
- Data elements that mean the same thing but use different labels were grouped together. The number of registries that support each data element is shown in the
"No. of TLDs"column. 💅
4. RIR Objects Analysis ✨
(Part 2 picks up right here, so stay tuned bestie 👀🎀)
4.1. WHOIS Data for Organizations Holding a Resource ✨
okay so bestie, this first table is the organization objects from all five RIRs, side by side 🌸 It's giving "who holds this resource?" energy. Each row is a field, and each column is one RIR's name for it. Some cells say NA, which just means that RIR doesn't have that field 💅
+--------------+------------+-----+----------+-----------+------------+
| RIR | AFRINIC |APNIC| ARIN | LACNIC | RIPE NCC |
| Objects | | | | | |
+--------------+------------+-----+----------+-----------+------------+
| Organization |organisation| NA | Name | Owner | org-name |
| name | | | | | |
+--------------+------------+-----+----------+-----------+------------+
| Organization | org-name | NA | Handle | owner-id |organisation|
| ID | | | | | |
+--------------+------------+-----+----------+-----------+------------+
| Company | NA | NA | Company | NA | NA |
+--------------+------------+-----+----------+-----------+------------+
| Name of | NA | NA | NA |responsible| NA |
| person | | | | | |
| responsible | | | | | |
+--------------+------------+-----+----------+-----------+------------+
| Type of | org-type | NA | NA | NA | org-type |
| organization | | | | | |
+--------------+------------+-----+----------+-----------+------------+
| Country | country | NA | country | country | country |
+--------------+------------+-----+----------+-----------+------------+
| Postal | address | NA | address | address | address |
| Address | | | | | |
+--------------+------------+-----+----------+-----------+------------+
| City | NA | NA | city | NA | address |
+--------------+------------+-----+----------+-----------+------------+
| State | NA | NA | StateProv| NA | address |
+--------------+------------+-----+----------+-----------+------------+
| Postal | NA | NA |PostalCode| NA | address |
| Code | | | | | |
+--------------+------------+-----+----------+-----------+------------+
| Phone | phone | NA | NA | phone | phone |
+--------------+------------+-----+----------+-----------+------------+
| Fax Number | fax-no | NA | NA | NA | fax-no |
+--------------+------------+-----+----------+-----------+------------+
| ID of | admin-c | NA | Admin | owner-c | admin-c |
|administrative| | | POC | | |
| contact | | | | | |
+--------------+------------+-----+----------+-----------+------------+
| ID of | tech-c | NA | Tech POC | tech-c | tech-c |
| technical | | | | | |
| contact | | | | | |
+--------------+------------+-----+----------+-----------+------------+
| Maintainer | mnt-ref | NA | NOC POC | NA | mnt-ref |
| organization | | | | | |
+--------------+------------+-----+----------+-----------+------------+
| Maintainer | mnt-by | NA | Abuse | NA | mnt-by |
| object | | | POC | | |
+--------------+------------+-----+----------+-----------+------------+
| Remarks | remarks | NA | NA | NA | remarks |
+--------------+------------+-----+----------+-----------+------------+
| Date of | Changed | NA | RegDate | created | Changed |
| record | | | | | |
| creation | | | | | |
+--------------+------------+-----+----------+-----------+------------+
| Date of | changed | NA | Updated | changed | changed |
| record | | | | | |
| changed | | | | | |
+--------------+------------+-----+----------+-----------+------------+
| List of | NA | NA | NA | list of | NA |
| resources | | | | resources | |
+--------------+------------+-----+----------+-----------+------------+
| Source | source | NA | NA | NA | source |
+--------------+------------+-----+----------+-----------+------------+
| Reference | NA | NA | Ref | NA | NA |
+--------------+------------+-----+----------+-----------+------------+Table 1. WHOIS Data for Organizations Holding a Resource
4.2. WHOIS Data for Contacts 💜
okay next up is the contact objects, so the people behind the records 🫶 Same deal here: the rows are the data elements, the columns are the five RIRs, and NA means that RIR doesn't use that element 🦋
+--------------+---------+---------+------------+---------+---------+
| Data Element | AFRINIC | APNIC | ARIN | LACNIC | RIPE |
| | | | | | NCC |
+--------------+---------+---------+------------+---------+---------+
| Name | person | person | Name | person | person |
+--------------+---------+---------+------------+---------+---------+
| Company | NA | NA | Company | NA | NA |
+--------------+---------+---------+------------+---------+---------+
| Postal | address | address | Address | address | address |
| Address | | | | | |
+--------------+---------+---------+------------+---------+---------+
| City | NA | NA | City | NA | address |
+--------------+---------+---------+------------+---------+---------+
| State | NA | NA | StateProv | NA | address |
+--------------+---------+---------+------------+---------+---------+
| Postal Code | NA | NA | PostalCode | NA | address |
+--------------+---------+---------+------------+---------+---------+
| Country | NA | country | Country | country | NA |
+--------------+---------+---------+------------+---------+---------+
| Phone | phone | phone | Mobile | phone | phone |
+--------------+---------+---------+------------+---------+---------+
| Fax Number | fax-no | fax-no | Fax | NA | fax-no |
+--------------+---------+---------+------------+---------+---------+
| Email | e-mail | e-mail | Email | e-mail | NA |
+--------------+---------+---------+------------+---------+---------+
| ID | nic-hdl | nic-hdl | Handle | nic-hdl | nic-hdl |
+--------------+---------+---------+------------+---------+---------+
| Remarks | remarks | remarks | Remarks | NA | remarks |
+--------------+---------+---------+------------+---------+---------+
| Notify | notify | notify | NA | NA | notify |
+--------------+---------+---------+------------+---------+---------+
| ID of | mnt-by | mnt-by | NA | NA | mnt-by |
| maintainer | | | | | |
+--------------+---------+---------+------------+---------+---------+
| Registration | changed | NA | RegDate | created | changed |
| Date | | | | | |
+--------------+---------+---------+------------+---------+---------+
| Registration | changed | changed | Updated | changed | changed |
| update | | | | | |
+--------------+---------+---------+------------+---------+---------+
| Source | source | source | NA | NA | source |
+--------------+---------+---------+------------+---------+---------+
| Reference | NA | NA | Ref | NA | NA |
+--------------+---------+---------+------------+---------+---------+Table 2. WHOIS Data for Contacts
4.3. WHOIS Data for IP Addresses 🌈
okay so this part is about the IP address objects, and the table is huge, so the cells get split up 🙈 Lines can only be 72 characters long, so some strings get chopped into two or more parts and placed on separate lines in the same cell. If the last character of a piece is a hyphen, that means the string got split because of the length limit ✨
Here's the example table, so you can see what that looks like:
+----------+----------+----------+
| Adminis- | | abuse-- |
| trative | admin-c | mailbox |
| contact | | |
+----------+----------+----------+Table 3. Example of String Splitting
The original strings in those cells of Table 3 are "Administrative contact", "admin-c", and "abuse-mailbox", in that order 🧚
And now the IP address table itself 👑
+------------+--------+----------+--------------+--------+-------------+
| Data | AFRINIC| APNIC | ARIN | LACNIC | RIPE NCC |
| Element | | | | | |
+------------+--------+----------+--------------+--------+-------------+
| IP | inetnum| inetnum | NetRange | NA | inetnum |
| address | | | | | |
| range | | | | | |
+------------+--------+----------+--------------+--------+-------------+
| IPv6 |inet6num| inet6num | CIDR |inetnum | inet6num |
| address | | | | | |
| range | | | | | |
+------------+--------+----------+--------------+--------+-------------+
| Description| descr | descr | NetName | NA | descr |
| | | | | | |
+------------+--------+----------+--------------+--------+-------------+
| Remarks | remarks| remarks | NA | NA | remarks |
| | | | | | |
+------------+--------+----------+--------------+--------+-------------+
| Origin AS | NA | NA | OriginAS |OriginAS| NA |
| | | | |(future)| |
+------------+--------+----------+--------------+--------+-------------+
| Network | netname| netname | NetHandle |inetrev | netname |
| name/ID | | | | | |
+------------+--------+----------+--------------+--------+-------------+
| Maintainer | mnt-by | NA | NA | NA | mnt-by |
| Object | | | | | |
+------------+--------+----------+--------------+--------+-------------+
| Maintainer | mnt-- | NA | NA | NA | NA |
| Sub- | lower | | | | |
| assignments| | | | | |
+------------+--------+----------+--------------+--------+-------------+
| Adminis- | admin-c| admin-c | OrgId | ownerid| admin-c |
| trative | | | | | |
| contact | | | | | |
+------------+--------+----------+--------------+--------+-------------+
| Parent | parent | NA | Parent | NA | NA |
| range | | | | | |4.4. WHOIS Data for ASNs ✨
Okay, ASNs get their own table, and it's honestly a lot 💅 Here's how each RIR labels the same data elements.
+--------------+---------+----------+-------------+---------+----------+
| Data | AFRINIC | APNIC | ARIN | LACNIC | RIPE NCC |
| Element | | | | | |
+--------------+---------+----------+-------------+---------+----------+
| ID | aut-num | aut-num | ASNumber | aut-num | aut-num |
| | | | | | |
+--------------+---------+----------+-------------+---------+----------+
| Description | descr | descr | NA | NA | descr |
| | | | | | |
+--------------+---------+----------+-------------+---------+----------+
|Organization | org | NA | OrgId | owner | org |
| | | | | | |
+--------------+---------+----------+-------------+---------+----------+
| Comment | remarks | NA | Comment | NA | remarks |
+--------------+---------+----------+-------------+---------+----------+
|Administrative| admin-c | admin-c | ASHandle |owner-id | admin-c |
| contact ID | | | | | |
+--------------+---------+----------+-------------+---------+----------+
| Technical | tech-c | tech-c |OrgTechHandle|routing-c| tech-c |
| contact ID | | | | | |
+--------------+---------+----------+-------------+---------+----------+
| Organization | NA | nic-hdl | NA | owner-c | organi- |
| ID | | | | | sation |
+--------------+---------+----------+-------------+---------+----------+
| Notify | notify | notify | NA | NA | NA |
+--------------+---------+----------+-------------+---------+----------+
| Abuse | NA | NA | OrgAbuse | abuse-c | NA |
| contact | | | Handle | | |
+--------------+---------+----------+-------------+---------+----------+
| Maintainer | mnt-by | mnt-by | NA | NA | mnt-by |
| Object | | | | | |
+--------------+---------+----------+-------------+---------+----------+
| Maintainer |mnt-lower| mnt-lower| NA | NA |mnt-lower |
| Sub- | | | | | |
| assignments | | | | | |
+--------------+---------+----------+-------------+---------+----------+
| Maintainer | NA | NA | NA | NA | mnt-ref |
| Organization | | | | | |
+--------------+---------+----------+-------------+---------+----------+
|Registration | changed | NA | RegDate | created | NA |
| Date | | | | | |
+--------------+---------+----------+-------------+---------+----------+
|Registration | changed | changed | Updated | changed | NA |
| update | | | | | |
+--------------+---------+----------+-------------+---------+----------+
| Source | source | source | NA | NA | source |
+--------------+---------+----------+-------------+---------+----------+Table 5. WHOIS Data for ASNs
4.5. Conclusion 🎀
Okay so, the big takeaway is that not every RIR supported every data element 🙈 Some got different labels too, and some reused the same label for totally different elements. 😭 To make one clean data model per object, the team picked the most common and useful fields, and that selection is where [RFC7483] started. 🫶
5. DNR Object Analysis 🌸
5.1. Overview ✨
So WHOIS data was collected from 124 registries: 106 ccTLDs and 18 gTLDs. 🌈 All 124 of them support domain queries. Eight ccTLDs and 15 gTLDs support queries for specific contact persons or roles. 10 ccTLDs and 18 gTLDs support queries by nameserver, and four ccTLDs and 18 gTLDs support registrar queries. Domain WHOIS data has 68 data elements that use a total of 550 labels, plus 392 other objects. Iconic numbers, honestly 👑
5.2. Public Objects 💖
As I mentioned above, public objects are the data elements picked from the new gTLD applicant guidebook and EPP. 🦋 They're usually sorted into four buckets depending on whether they belong to the domain, contact, nameserver, or registrar.
5.2.1. WHOIS Data for Domains 🍓
WHOIS replies about domains can include "Domain Name", "Creation Date", "Domain Status", "Expiration Date", "Updated Date", "Domain ID", "DNSSEC", and "Last Transferred Date". 💅 Table 6 is your cheat sheet for each element's name, its most popular label, and how many TLDs and labels show up for it.
+-------------------+-------------------+------------+--------------+
| Data Element | Most Popular | No. of | No. of |
| | Label | TLDs | Labels |
+-------------------+-------------------+------------+--------------+
| Domain Name | Domain Name | 118 | 6 |
+-------------------+-------------------+------------+--------------+
| Creation Date | Created | 106 | 24 |
+-------------------+-------------------+------------+--------------+
| Domain Status | Status | 95 | 8 |
+-------------------+-------------------+------------+--------------+
| Expiration Date | Expiration Date | 81 | 21 |
+-------------------+-------------------+------------+--------------+
| Updated Date | Modified | 70 | 20 |
+-------------------+-------------------+------------+--------------+
| Domain ID | Domain ID | 34 | 5 |
+-------------------+-------------------+------------+--------------+
| DNSSEC | DNSSEC | 14 | 4 |
+-------------------+-------------------+------------+--------------+
| Last Transferred | Last Transferred | 4 | 3 |
| Date | Date | | |
+-------------------+-------------------+------------+--------------+Table 6. WHOIS Data for Domains
Some stats from that table, bestie 📊
- 95.16% of the 124 registries support a "Domain Name" data element. 💖
- 85.48% of the 124 registries support a "Creation Date" data element. 🦋
- 76.61% of the 124 registries support a "Domain Status" data element. ✨
- Then there's the underdogs 🥺: "DNSSEC" and "Last Transferred Date" are only supported by 11.29% and 3.23% of the registries, respectively.
5.2.2. WHOIS Data for Contacts 🧚
In the domain name space, contacts usually fall into four types: registrant, administrative contact, technical contact, and billing contact. 💜 Main character energy for sure 👑
5.2.2.1. Registrant
Okay so, Table 7 is the full contact-info lineup for a registrant 💖 There are 14 data elements, and they're all listed right here 🎀
+--------------------+---------------------+-----------+------------+
| Data Element | Most Popular Label | No. of | No. of |
| | | TLDs | Labels |
+--------------------+---------------------+-----------+------------+
| Registrant Name | Name | 65 | 7 |
+--------------------+---------------------+-----------+------------+
| Registrant Email | Registrant Email | 59 | 7 |
+--------------------+---------------------+-----------+------------+
| Registrant ID | Registrant ID | 50 | 12 |
+--------------------+---------------------+-----------+------------+
| Registrant Phone | Registrant Phone | 48 | 6 |
+--------------------+---------------------+-----------+------------+
| Registrant Fax | Registrant Fax | 44 | 6 |
+--------------------+---------------------+-----------+------------+
| Registrant | Registrant | 42 | 4 |
| Organization | Organization | | |
+--------------------+---------------------+-----------+------------+
| Registrant Country | Country | 42 | 6 |
| Code | | | |
+--------------------+---------------------+-----------+------------+
| Registrant City | Registrant City | 38 | 4 |
+--------------------+---------------------+-----------+------------+
| Registrant Postal | Registrant Postal | 37 | 5 |
| Code | Code | | |
+--------------------+---------------------+-----------+------------+
| Registrant | Registrant | 32 | 4 |
| State/Province | State/Province | | |
+--------------------+---------------------+-----------+------------+
| Registrant Street | Registrant Street1 | 31 | 16 |
+--------------------+---------------------+-----------+------------+
| Registrant Country | Registrant Country | 19 | 4 |
+--------------------+---------------------+-----------+------------+
| Registrant Phone | Registrant Phone | 18 | 2 |
| Ext. | Ext. | | |
+--------------------+---------------------+-----------+------------+
| Registrant Fax Ext | Registrant Fax Ext | 17 | 2 |
+--------------------+---------------------+-----------+------------+Table 7. Registrant
Ngl, the big takeaway here is that only "Registrant Name" is backed by more than one half of registries 👑 Then there's a squad of registries backing "more than one third" of the list: "Registrant Name", "Registrant Email", "Registrant ID", "Registrant Phone", "Registrant Fax", "Registrant Organization", and "Registrant Country Code" 🌸
5.2.2.2. Admin Contact
Table 8 is the contact-info breakdown for an administrative contact 🧚 Same deal, 14 data elements, all lined up below 💅
+--------------------+--------------------+-----------+-------------+
| Data Element | Most Popular Label | No. of | No. of |
| | | TLDs | Labels |
+--------------------+--------------------+-----------+-------------+
| Admin Street | Address | 64 | 19 |
+--------------------+--------------------+-----------+-------------+
| Admin Name | Admin Name | 60 | 9 |
+--------------------+--------------------+-----------+-------------+
| Admin Email | Admin Email | 54 | 12 |
+--------------------+--------------------+-----------+-------------+
| Admin ID | Admin ID | 52 | 16 |
+--------------------+--------------------+-----------+-------------+
| Admin Fax | Admin Fax | 44 | 8 |
+--------------------+--------------------+-----------+-------------+
| Admin Phone | Admin Phone | 43 | 9 |
+--------------------+--------------------+-----------+-------------+
| Admin Organization | Admin Organization | 42 | 9 |
+--------------------+--------------------+-----------+-------------+
| Admin Country Code | Country | 42 | 7 |
+--------------------+--------------------+-----------+-------------+
| Admin City | Admin City | 35 | 5 |
+--------------------+--------------------+-----------+-------------+
| Admin Postal Code | Admin Postal Code | 35 | 7 |
+--------------------+--------------------+-----------+-------------+
| Admin | Admin | 28 | 5 |
| State/Province | State/Province | | |
+--------------------+--------------------+-----------+-------------+
| Admin Country | Admin Country | 17 | 5 |
+--------------------+--------------------+-----------+-------------+
| Admin Phone Ext. | Admin Phone Ext. | 17 | 3 |
+--------------------+--------------------+-----------+-------------+
| Admin Fax Ext. | Admin Fax Ext. | 17 | 3 |
+--------------------+--------------------+-----------+-------------+Table 8. Admin Contact
So for admin contacts, only "Admin Street" is supported by more than one half of registries 🦋 The ones backed by more than one third of registries are: "Admin Street", "Admin Name", "Admin Email", "Admin ID", "Admin Fax", "Admin Phone", "Admin Organization", and "Admin Country Code" ✨
5.2.2.3. Tech Contact
Table 9 shows all the info for a domain name technical contact 🍓 Once again, 14 data elements, all listed below 🫶
+--------------------+--------------------+-----------+-------------+
| Data Element | Most Popular Label | No. of | No. of |
| | | TLDs | Labels |
+--------------------+--------------------+-----------+-------------+
| Tech Email | Tech Email | 59 | 9 |
+--------------------+--------------------+-----------+-------------+
| Tech ID | Tech ID | 55 | 16 |
+--------------------+--------------------+-----------+-------------+
| Tech Name | Tech Name | 47 | 6 |
+--------------------+--------------------+-----------+-------------+
| Tech Fax | Tech Fax | 45 | 9 |
+--------------------+--------------------+-----------+-------------+
| Tech Phone | Tech Phone | 45 | 10 |
+--------------------+--------------------+-----------+-------------+
| Tech Country Code | Country | 43 | 9 |
+--------------------+--------------------+-----------+-------------+
| Tech Organization | Tech Organization | 39 | 7 |
+--------------------+--------------------+-----------+-------------+
| Tech City | Tech City | 36 | 4 |
+--------------------+--------------------+-----------+-------------+
| Tech Postal Code | Tech Postal Code | 36 | 7 |
+--------------------+--------------------+-----------+-------------+
| Tech | Tech | 30 | 4 |
| State/Province | State/Province | | |
+--------------------+--------------------+-----------+-------------+
| Tech Street | Tech Street1 | 27 | 16 |
+--------------------+--------------------+-----------+-------------+
| Tech Country | Tech Country | 18 | 5 |
+--------------------+--------------------+-----------+-------------+
| Tech Fax Ext | Tech Fax Ext | 18 | 3 |
+--------------------+--------------------+-----------+-------------+
| Tech Phone Ext. | Tech Phone Ext. | 13 | 3 |
+--------------------+--------------------+-----------+-------------+Table 9. Tech Contact
For tech contacts, there are no elements backed by more than one half of registries, and that's the tea ☕ Those backed by more than one third of registries are: "Tech Email", "Tech ID", "Tech Name", "Tech Fax", "Tech Phone", and "Tech Country Code" 💜
5.2.2.4. Billing Contact 💳✨
okay bestie, the billing contact is next and it's giving "who's paying for this" energy 💅 Table 10 has all the info for a domain name billing contact. There are 14 data elements, and they're all listed below 🎀
+--------------------+--------------------+-----------+-------------+
| Data Element | Most Popular Label | No. of | No. of |
| | | TLDs | Labels |
+--------------------+--------------------+-----------+-------------+
| Billing Name | Name | 47 | 5 |
+--------------------+--------------------+-----------+-------------+
| Billing Fax | Fax | 43 | 6 |
+--------------------+--------------------+-----------+-------------+
| Billing Email | Email Address | 42 | 7 |
+--------------------+--------------------+-----------+-------------+
| Billing Country | Country | 38 | 4 |
| Code | | | |
+--------------------+--------------------+-----------+-------------+
| Billing Phone | Phone Number | 34 | 6 |
+--------------------+--------------------+-----------+-------------+
| Billing ID | Billing ID | 28 | 9 |
+--------------------+--------------------+-----------+-------------+
| Billing City | Billing City | 28 | 4 |
+--------------------+--------------------+-----------+-------------+
| Billing | Billing | 28 | 5 |
| Organization | Organization | | |
+--------------------+--------------------+-----------+-------------+
| Billing Postal | Billing Postal | 27 | 4 |
| Code | Code | | |
+--------------------+--------------------+-----------+-------------+
| Billing | Billing | 21 | 4 |
| State/Province | State/Province | | |
+--------------------+--------------------+-----------+-------------+
| Billing Street | Billing Street1 | 19 | 13 |
+--------------------+--------------------+-----------+-------------+
| Billing Country | Billing Country | 13 | 5 |
+--------------------+--------------------+-----------+-------------+
| Billing Phone Ext. | Billing Phone Ext. | 10 | 2 |
+--------------------+--------------------+-----------+-------------+
| Billing Fax Ext | Billing Fax Ext | 10 | 2 |
+--------------------+--------------------+-----------+-------------+
Table 10. Billing Contactngl, none of these elements is supported by more than half of registries 😭 The ones that get over a third of registries are "Billing Name", "Billing Fax", and "Billing Email" 🦋
5.2.3. WHOIS Data for Nameservers 🧚
okay, the nameserver thing is so iconic 👑 114 registries (about 92% of the 124 registries) have the "nameserver" data element in their WHOIS responses. The catch is there are 63 different labels for it, which is a LOT 💀 Table 11 shows the details.
The top three labels are "Name Server" (supported by 25% of the registries), "Name Servers" (supported by 16%), and "nserver" (supported by 12%) 🍓
+--------------+--------------------+-------------+---------------+
| Data Element | Most Popular Label | No. of TLDs | No. of Labels |
+--------------+--------------------+-------------+---------------+
| NameServer | Name Server | 114 | 63 |
+--------------+--------------------+-------------+---------------+
Table 11. WHOIS Data for NameserversSome registries use labels like "nameserver 1", "nameserver 2" till "nameserver n" 🌈 That's why there are way more labels here than for other data elements. Literally chaotic, but make it make sense 🙈
5.2.4. WHOIS Data for Registrars 🎀
there are three data elements about registrar info, bestie 💖
+-------------------+---------------------+-----------+-------------+
| Data Element | Most Popular Label | No. of | No. of |
| | | TLDs | Labels |
+-------------------+---------------------+-----------+-------------+
| Sponsoring | Registrar | 84 | 6 |
| Registrar | | | |
+-------------------+---------------------+-----------+-------------+
| Created by | Created by | 14 | 3 |
| Registrar | | | |
+-------------------+---------------------+-----------+-------------+
| Updated by | Last Updated by | 11 | 3 |
| Registrar | Registrar | | |
+-------------------+---------------------+-----------+-------------+
Table 12. WHOIS Data for Registrars67.7% of the registries have the "Sponsoring Registrar" data element 🔥 "Created by Registrar" shows up for 11.3% of registries, and "Updated by Registrar" for 8.9% 💅
5.3. Other Objects 🎀
okay so "other objects" are the data elements that are either privately specified or just really hard to sort into a box 🫠 there are 392 other objects altogether, and Table 13 shows the top 50 that popped up during data collection 💅
+----------------------------------------+-------------+
| Data Element | No. of TLDs |
+----------------------------------------+-------------+
| Registrant | 41 |
+----------------------------------------+-------------+
| Phone | 32 |
+----------------------------------------+-------------+
| Technical contact | 26 |
+----------------------------------------+-------------+
| Administrative contact | 15 |
+----------------------------------------+-------------+
| source | 14 |
+----------------------------------------+-------------+
| fax-no | 13 |
+----------------------------------------+-------------+
| nic-hdl | 13 |
+----------------------------------------+-------------+
| Billing Contact | 12 |
+----------------------------------------+-------------+
| referral url | 11 |
+----------------------------------------+-------------+
| e-mail | 10 |
+----------------------------------------+-------------+
| WHOIS server | 9 |
+----------------------------------------+-------------+
| Admin Contact | 9 |
+----------------------------------------+-------------+
| Type | 9 |
+----------------------------------------+-------------+
| Website | 9 |
+----------------------------------------+-------------+
| zone-c | 8 |
+----------------------------------------+-------------+
| remarks | 7 |
+----------------------------------------+-------------+
| Registration URL | 6 |
+----------------------------------------+-------------+
| anonymous | 6 |
+----------------------------------------+-------------+
| anniversary | 6 |
+----------------------------------------+-------------+
| hold | 6 |
+----------------------------------------+-------------+
| nsl-id | 6 |
+----------------------------------------+-------------+
| obsoleted | 6 |
+----------------------------------------+-------------+
| Customer Service Contact | 5 |
+----------------------------------------+-------------+
| Customer Service Email | 4 |
+----------------------------------------+-------------+
| Registrar ID | 4 |
+----------------------------------------+-------------+
| org | 4 |
+----------------------------------------+-------------+
| person | 4 |
+----------------------------------------+-------------+
| Maintainer | 4 |
+----------------------------------------+-------------+
| Nombre | 3 |
+----------------------------------------+-------------+
| Sponsoring Registrar IANA ID | 3 |
+----------------------------------------+-------------+
| Trademark Number | 3 |
+----------------------------------------+-------------+
| Trademark Country | 3 |
+----------------------------------------+-------------+
| descr | 3 |
+----------------------------------------+-------------+
| url | 3 |
+----------------------------------------+-------------+
| Postal address | 3 |
+----------------------------------------+-------------+
| Registrar URL | 3 |
+----------------------------------------+-------------+
| International Name | 3 |
+----------------------------------------+-------------+
| International Address | 3 |
+----------------------------------------+-------------+
| Admin Contacts | 2 |
+----------------------------------------+-------------+
| Contractual Language | 2 |
+----------------------------------------+-------------+
| Date Trademark Registered | 2 |
+----------------------------------------+-------------+
| Date Trademark Applied For | 2 |
+----------------------------------------+-------------+
| IP Address | 2 |
+----------------------------------------+-------------+
| Keys | 2 |
+----------------------------------------+-------------+
| Language | 2 |
+----------------------------------------+-------------+
| NIC handle | 2 |
+----------------------------------------+-------------+
| Record maintained by | 2 |
+----------------------------------------+-------------+
| Registration Service Provider | 2 |
+----------------------------------------+-------------+
| Registration Service Provided By | 2 |
+----------------------------------------+-------------+
| Registrar URL (registration services) | 2 |
+----------------------------------------+-------------+
Table 13. The Top 50 Other Objectssome registries sent back stuff that looked like labels but weren't 👀 check this reply:
Registrant:
Name:
Email:
..."Name" and "Email" looked like real data elements, but "Registrant" was just a label 🏷️ the inventory work went with that assumption, i.e., this example has two data elements to record, not three ✨
some other data elements, like "Remarks", "anniversary", and "Customer service Contact", are custom-built for their own purpose by different registries 🧚
5.4. Conclusion 🦋
5.4.1. Preliminary Statistics 📊
okay the raw data already gives us some preliminary conclusions, and they're spicy 🌶️
- All of the 124 domain registries have the object names in their responses, although they come in various formats 🎀
- Of the 118 WHOIS services contacted, 65 registries show their registrant contact. About half of the registries (60 registries) support admin contact information. There are 47 registries, which is about one third of the total number, that have technical and billing contact information. Only seven of the 124 registries give their abuse email in a "remarks" section. No explicit abuse contact information is provided. 🙈
- There are mainly two presentation formats. One is key-value; the other is data block format. Example of key-value format:
Domain Information
Query: nic.example.com
Status: Delegated
Created: 17 Apr 2004
Modified: 14 Nov 2010
Expires: 31 Dec 9999
Name Servers: ns.example.net
ns1.na.example.net
ns2.na.example.net
...Example of data block format:
WHOIS database
domain nic.example.org
Domain Name nic.example.org
Registered 1998-09-02
Expiry 2012-09-02
Resource Records
a 198.51.100.1
mx 10 test.example.net
www a 198.51.100.10
Contact details
Registrant,
Technical Contact,
Billing Contact,
Admin. Contact AdamsNames Reserved Domains (i)
These domains are not available for registration
United Kingdom
Identifier: test123
Servidor WHOIS de NIC-Example
Este servidor contiene informacion autoritativa exclusivamente de
dominios nic.example.org Cualquier consulta sobre este servicio, puede
hacerla al correo electronico whois@nic.example.org
Titular:
John (nic.example.org) john@nic.example.org
NIC Example
Av. Veracruz con calle Cali, Edif Aguila, Urb. Las Mercedes
Caracas, Distrito Capital VE
0212-1234567 (FAX) +582123456789- 11 registries give local script responses. The WHOIS information of other registries is all represented in English 🌈
5.4.2. Data Element Analysis ✨
okay bestie, here are the top 10 data elements in Table 14 🎀
+----------------------+-------------+
| Data Element | No. of TLDs |
+----------------------+-------------+
| Domain Name | 118 |
+----------------------+-------------+
| Name Server | 114 |
+----------------------+-------------+
| Creation Date | 106 |
+----------------------+-------------+
| Domain Status | 95 |
+----------------------+-------------+
| Sponsoring Registrar | 84 |
+----------------------+-------------+
| Expiration Date | 81 |
+----------------------+-------------+
| Updated Date | 70 |
+----------------------+-------------+
| Registrant Name | 65 |
+----------------------+-------------+
| Admin Street | 64 |
+----------------------+-------------+
| Admin Name | 60 |
+----------------------+-------------+
Table 14. The Top 10 Data Elementsokay so most of the domain-related WHOIS info lives in those top 10 data elements 💅 Other stuff, like name server and registrar name, is also supported by most registries, which is giving main character energy 🌸
A cumulative distribution analysis of all the data elements was done too 📊
- (1) About 5% of the data elements discovered by the inventory work are supported by 111 registries (i.e., 90%). ✨
- (2) About 30% of the data elements discovered by the inventory work are supported by 44 registries (i.e., 35%). 🦋
- (3) About 60% of the data elements discovered by the inventory work are supported by 32 registries (i.e., 26%). 🍓
- (4) About 90% of the data elements discovered by the inventory work are supported by 14 registries (i.e., 11%). 💜
so from that, it's clear that only a few registries support all the public objects 😭 Most registries just support some of the objects, and that's the tea ☕
5.4.3. Label Analysis
the top 10 labels for the different data elements are in Table 15 🧚
+-------------------+---------------+
| Labels | No. of Labels |
+-------------------+---------------+
| Name Server | 63 |
+-------------------+---------------+
| Creation Date | 24 |
+-------------------+---------------+
| Expiration Date | 21 |
+-------------------+---------------+
| Updated Date | 20 |
+-------------------+---------------+
| Admin Street | 19 |
+-------------------+---------------+
| Tech ID | 18 |
+-------------------+---------------+
| Registrant Street | 16 |
+-------------------+---------------+
| Admin ID | 16 |
+-------------------+---------------+
| Tech Street | 16 |
+-------------------+---------------+
| Billing Street | 13 |
+-------------------+---------------+
Table 15. The Top 10 Labelsas we already explained, the "Name Server" label is a total unique icon 👑 Many registries define the name server elements as "nameserver 1" through "nameserver n", so the label count for name servers is way higher than for everything else 🙈 Dates and street addresses were also super common 🏠
a cumulative distribution analysis of label numbers was done too 📈 About 90% of data elements have more than two labels. So it is necessary to specify a standard and unified format for object names in a WHOIS response 🫶
5.4.4. Analysis of Other Objects
the results show there are 392 other data objects in total that are hard to classify or that are privately defined by various registries 🌈 The top 50 other objects are listed in Table 13 in Section 5.3. It's very clear that a bunch of different objects are designed for some particular purpose 🎀 To make sure JSON names used in the RDAP service are unique, establishing an IANA registry is advised 💖
5.5. Limitations
this section lists the limitations of the survey and some assumptions made while doing this work 📝
- The input
nic.ccTLDmay not be a good choice, for the term "nic" is often specially used by the corresponding ccTLD, so the collected WHOIS data may be customized and different from the common data. 🙈 - Since the programming script queried the
nic.ccTLDin an anonymous way, only the public WHOIS data from WHOIS servers havingnic.ccTLDwere collected. So, the private WHOIS data were not covered by this document. 🔒 - 11 registries did not provide responses in English. The classification of data elements within their responses may not be accurate. 🌍
- The extension data elements are used randomly by different registries. It is difficult to do statistical analysis. 😵💫
- Sample sizes of contact, name server, and registrar queries are small.
- Only WHOIS queries for contact ID, nameserver, and registrar were used.
- Some registries may not support contact, name server, or registrar queries.
- Some may not support query contact by ID.
- Contact information of some registries may be protected. 🫣
6. Reference Extension Objects ✨
there are some objects that are included in the existing WHOIS system but are not mentioned in [RFC7483]. This document is intended to give a list of reference extension objects for discussion 💬
6.1. RIR Reference Extension Objects
company- the company name registered by the registrant. 🏢maintainer- authentication information that identifies who can modify the contents of this object. 🔐list of resources- a list of IPv4 addresses, IPv6 addresses, and Autonomous System numbers. 🌐referral NOC contact- the Network Operations Center contact. 📞
6.2. DNR Reference Extension Objects
the following objects are selected from the top 50 other objects in Section 5.3 that are supported by more than five registries. These objects are considered as possible extension objects 🦋
zone-c- The identifier of a 'role' object with authority over a zone. 👑maintainer- authentication information that identifies who can modify the contents of this object. 🔐Registration URL- typically the website address of a registry. 🔗anonymous- whether the registration information is anonymous or not. 🥸hold- whether the domain is "on hold" or not. ⏸️nsl-id- nameserver list ID. 🆔obsoleted- whether a domain is obsoleted or not. 🗑️Customer Service Contact- a kind of contact. 📇
7. Security Considerations 🚨
This document does not provide any security services or introduce additional considerations to those discussed in [RFC7481]. Security stuff lives over there, so go check it out 🔐
8. Informative References 📚
- [ICANN.AGB-201206] ICANN, "gTLD Applicant Guidebook", June 2012,
http://newgtlds.icann.org/en/applicants/agb/guidebook-full-04jun12-en.pdf. - [RFC2622] Alaettinoglu, C., Villamizar, C., Gerich, E., Kessens, D., Meyer, D., Bates, T., Karrenberg, D., and M. Terpstra, "Routing Policy Specification Language (RPSL)", RFC 2622, June 1999,
http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2622. - [RFC3912] Daigle, L., "WHOIS Protocol Specification", RFC 3912, September 2004,
http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3912. - [RFC5730] Hollenbeck, S., "Extensible Provisioning Protocol (EPP)", STD 69, RFC 5730, August 2009,
http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5730. - [RFC5731] Hollenbeck, S., "Extensible Provisioning Protocol (EPP) Domain Name Mapping", STD 69, RFC 5731, August 2009,
http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5731. - [RFC5732] Hollenbeck, S., "Extensible Provisioning Protocol (EPP) Host Mapping", STD 69, RFC 5732, August 2009,
http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5732. - [RFC5733] Hollenbeck, S., "Extensible Provisioning Protocol (EPP) Contact Mapping", STD 69, RFC 5733, August 2009,
http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5733. - [RFC5890] Klensin, J., "Internationalized Domain Names for Applications (IDNA): Definitions and Document Framework", RFC 5890, August 2010,
http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5890. - [RFC7480] Newton, A., Ellacott, B., and N. Kong, "HTTP Usage in the Registration Data Access Protocol (RDAP)", RFC 7480, March 2015,
http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7480. - [RFC7481] Hollenbeck, S. and N. Kong, "Security Services for the Registration Data Access Protocol (RDAP)", RFC 7481, March 2015,
http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7481. - [RFC7482] Newton, A. and S. Hollenbeck, "Registration Data Access Protocol (RDAP) Query Format", RFC 7482, March 2015,
http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7482. - [RFC7483] Newton, A. and S. Hollenbeck, "JSON Responses for the Registration Data Access Protocol (RDAP)", RFC 7483, March 2015,
http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7483. - [RFC7484] Blanchet, M., "Finding the Authoritative Registration Data (RDAP) Service", RFC 7484, March 2015,
http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7484.
Acknowledgements ✨
this document is the work product of the IETF's WEIRDS working group, of which Olaf Kolkman and Murray Kucherawy were chairs 🫶
the authors especially thank the following individuals who gave their suggestions and contributions to this document: Guangqing Deng, Frederico A C Neves, Ray Bellis, Edward Shryane, Kaveh Ranjbar, Murray Kucherawy, Edward Lewis, Pete Resnick, Juergen Schoenwaelder, Ben Campbell, and Claudio Allocchio 💖
Authors' Addresses 💌
Linlin Zhou
CNNIC
4 South 4th Street, Zhongguancun, Haidian District
Beijing 100190
China
Phone: +86 10 5881 2677
EMail: zhoulinlin@cnnic.cn
Ning Kong
CNNIC
4 South 4th Street, Zhongguancun, Haidian District
Beijing 100190
China
Phone: +86 10 5881 3147
EMail: nkong@cnnic.cn
Sean Shen
CNNIC
4 South 4th Street, Zhongguancun, Haidian District
Beijing 100190
China
Phone: +86 10 5881 3038
EMail: shenshuo@cnnic.cn
Steve Sheng
ICANN
12025 Waterfront Drive, Suite 300
Los Angeles, CA 90094-2536
United States
Phone: +1 310 301 5800
EMail: steve.sheng@icann.org
Arturo Servin
LACNIC
Rambla Mexico 6125
Montevideo 11400
Uruguay
Phone: +598-2604-2222
EMail: arturo.servin@gmail.com📦 where this page comes from
- ietf: rfc7485 2015-03
- 💖 girlified by claude-haiku-5-5 on : a language model's rewrite of the original, under its terms