Subject: [ietf-provreg] EPP and IDN

From: Klaus Malorny <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 31 Jul 2003 09:59:11 +0200

Hi all,

can anyone tell me something about the relation between EPP and IDN? I 
have seen that there are various drafts out there (like 
draft-chung-idnop-epp-idn-00.txt) that deal with IDN issues like 
variants et al. But is my assumption correct that the base protocol 
itself does not limit the use of internationalized names in domains and 
host objects? I mean since XML is able to transport the full Unicode 
character set, it should be possible to specify non-ASCII characters in 
domainname related elements. Or does the protocol require that those 
names are transmitted in their Punycode equivalent, as it happens 
(AFAIK) in Verisign's current RRP implementation? Is the choice between 
the "presentation form" and Punycode at descretion of the implementing 
registry?

Thanks in advance,

Klaus

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From: Stephane Bortzmeyer <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 31 Jul 2003 13:22:34 +0200

[IMHO, IANAL and I never wrote an EPP server.]

On Thu, Jul 31, 2003 at 09:59:11AM +0200,
 Klaus Malorny <[email-masked]> wrote 
 a message of 30 lines which said:

> can anyone tell me something about the relation between EPP and IDN?

EPP itself (which I believe is Unicode-clean) or one of the mappings?
The current domain mapping does not seem to allow IDN. domain-07 says:

  The syntax for domain and host names described in this document MUST
  conform to [RFC952] as updated by [RFC1123].  These conformance
  requirements might change as a result of progressing work in
  developing standards for internationalized domain names.

<troll>Now that RFC 3490 is out, may be we should stop the draft
documents and rewrite that part before resending them to the
IESG?</troll>

> But is my assumption correct that the base protocol itself does not
> limit the use of internationalized names in domains and host
> objects?

Yes.

> I mean since XML is able to transport the full Unicode character
> set, it should be possible to specify non-ASCII characters in
> domainname related elements.

Right, -09 says:

  EPP is represented in XML, which provides native support for encoding
  information using the Unicode character set and its more compact
  representations including UTF-8.  Conformant XML processors recognize
  both UTF-8 and UTF-16.

> Or does the protocol require that those names are transmitted in
> their Punycode equivalent, as it happens (AFAIK) in Verisign's
> current RRP implementation? Is the choice between the "presentation
> form" and Punycode at descretion of the implementing registry?

I believe so. Basically, it depends on what you sell and bill, Unicode
names or ACE strings. (It has a lot of consequences, for instance
legal ones: think of a normalization change, for instance, or a
dispute about a trademark expressed in Unicode.)

---

From: Kentaro Mori <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 31 Jul 2003 21:57:14 +0900

Hello, this is Mori of JPRS (Japan Registry Service, the domain name
registry in Japan).

I am very curious about this issue from the standpoint of a member of
registry who currently provides IDNs.

> documents and rewrite that part before resending them to the

I know now is slightly worse timing for rewrite the documents and also
know the extension can handle IDNs properly, but I believe there is
still a chance for rewriting the protocol itself.  I think registries
who sell IDNs essentially do not sell Punycode strings, so it seems to
be better that IDN itself can specified in the relevant tags such as:
- <domain:name>,<domain:hostObj> in domain-07
- <host:name> in host-07
and perhaps,
- <contact:email> in contact-07 (further future?)

Thanks in advance.

--
Kentaro Mori, Research and Development department
Japan Registry Service Co.,Ltd. (JPRS)
E-Mail: [email-masked]