DNS Root Name Service Protocol and Deployment Requirements
draft-iab-2870bis-02.txt

Abstract

The DNS Root Name service is a critical part of the Internet architecture. The protocol and deployment requirements expected to be implemented for the DNS root name service are defined in this document. Operational requirements are out of scope.

Status of This Memo

This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.

Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). Note that other groups may also distribute working documents as Internet-Drafts. The list of current Internet-Drafts is at http://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/current/.

Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any time. It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference material or to cite them other than as "work in progress."

This Internet-Draft will expire on August 18, 2015.

Copyright Notice

Copyright (c) 2015 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the document authors. All rights reserved.

This document is 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 date of publication of this document. Please review these documents carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect to this document. Code Components extracted from this document must include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as described in the Simplified BSD License.

Table of Contents

• 1. Introduction
• 1.1. RFC 2870 as Historic
• 2. Protocol Requirements
• 3. Deployment Requirements
• 4. Security Considerations
• 5. IANA Considerations
• 6. Acknowledgements
• 7. Informative References
• Authors' Addresses

1. Introduction

[RFC2870] discusses protocol and operational requirements for root name servers for Internet's domain name system(DNS) protocol [RFC1035]. Since its publication, both protocol and operational requirements have evolved. It makes more sense now to separate the two sets of requirements into two separate documents. The operational requirements are defined in [RSSAC-001]. This document defines the protocol requirements and some deployment requirements.

The root servers are authoritative servers of the unique [RFC2826] root zone (".")[ROOTZONE]. They currently also serve the root-servers.net zone. Some also serve the zone for the .arpa top-level domain[ARPAZONE]. This document describes the external interface of the root name servers from a protocol viewpoint of the service. It specifies basic requirements for the Internet that DNS clients meet when interacting with a root name service over the public Internet.

The keywords MUST, MUST NOT, REQUIRED, SHALL, SHALL NOT, SHOULD, SHOULD NOT, RECOMMENDED, MAY, and OPTIONAL, when they appear in this document, are to be interpreted as described in BCP 14, [RFC2119].

1.1. RFC 2870 as Historic

This document obsoletes and reclassifies [RFC2870] as Historic.

This document and [RSSAC-001] together functionally replace [RFC2870].

2. Protocol Requirements

This section describes the minimum high-level protocol requirements. Operative details are documented in [RSSAC-001] and implementation is left to the operators of the root name service.

The root name service:

• MUST implement core DNS [RFC1035] and clarifications to the DNS [RFC2181].
• MUST support IPv4[RFC0791] and IPv6[RFC2460] transport of DNS queries and responses.
• MUST support UDP[RFC0768] and TCP[RFC0793] transport of DNS queries and responses.
• MUST generate checksums when sending UDP datagrams and MUST verify checksums when receiving UDP datagrams containing a non-zero checksum.
• MUST implement DNSSEC[RFC4035], as an authoritative name service.

3. Deployment Requirements

The root name service:

• MUST answer queries from any entity conforming to [RFC1122] with a valid IP address.
• MUST serve the unique [RFC2826] root zone[ROOTZONE].

4. Security Considerations

This document does not specify a new protocol. However, the root name service is a key component of the Internet architecture and play a key role into the overall security of the Internet[RFC2826]. Specific security considerations on the DNS protocols are discussed in their respective specifications. The security considerations on the operational side of the root name servers are discussed in [RSSAC-001].

5. IANA Considerations

This document has no action for IANA.

6. Acknowledgements

Some text was taken from [RFC2870]. The editors of this document would like to sincerely thank the following individuals for valuable contributions to the text: Andrew Sullivan, Simon Perreault, Jean-Philippe Dionne, Dave Thaler, Russ Housley, Alissa Cooper, Joe Abley, Joao Damas, Daniel Karrenberg, Jacques Latour, Eliot Lear, Bill Manning, David Conrad, Paul Hoffman.

7. Informative References

Authors' Addresses