Subject: Sent query: Restrictions on a DNS toplevel name? (fwd)

From: Harald Tveit Alvestrand <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 26 Sep 2005 10:28:31 +0200

Since I don't believe the USEFOR WG is the correct forum to make a decision 
on the "legal" TLD names, I decided to ask for an opinion....

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Date: mandag, september 26, 2005 10:27:17 +0200
From: Harald Tveit Alvestrand <[email-masked]>
To: [email-masked], [email-masked], [email-masked]
Cc:
Subject: DNS question: Restrictions on a DNS toplevel name?

This is a request from the chair of USEFOR for a clarification.

The list has been discussing the properties that are guaranteed of a DNS
top-level name ("TLD name").

The current contenders for the throne are:

- MUST be alphabetic (only contain a-z)
- MUST begin with an alphabetic character (a-z)
- MUST contain at least one alphabetic character
- No guarantees

We think that under all circumstances, it is character set limited to
alphanumerics (a-z, 0-9) and the dash, and that the dash cannot appear as
the first or last character (by virtue of RFC 1123).

We would like to know:

- Which of the 4 theories above is currently believed to be true by the
IETF and by ICANN?
- Where can we find an authoritative statement supporting that theory, and
who is making that statement?

We have so far found RFC 1123 section 2.1 (standard) supporting the first
theory, RFC 3696 section 2 paragraph 8 (Informative) supporting the third,
and RFC 2181 section 11 seeming to support the fourth.

RFC 2860 section 4.3 seems to indicate that the authority is ICANN;
however, it would be strange if ICANN chose to disregard the IETF in this
matter.

Any clarification you can bring would be helpful.

                   Harald Alvestrand

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