[council] IANA Handling of Root-Zone Changes

[Louis Touton <touton@icann.org>]

To the Names Council:

Recently, the Names Council has been discussing the KPNQwest
bankruptcy, and its consequences for the IANA's handling of root-
zone changes (i.e. changes to the listed nameservers for top-level
domains).   The IANA has pulled together some data on these effects,
which I would like to share with you.

In May, KPNQwest (a large ISP in Europe) announced that it was
shutting down operations.  These operations included a nameserver,
named ns.eu.net, that provided DNS service to thousands of DNS domains.
Among the domains KPNQwest served were 67 ccTLDs that had ns.eu.net
listed as a secondary nameserver (as well as a much smaller number of
instances of ccTLDs served by other KPNQwest-operated nameservers).

Changing the nameservers for a ccTLD requires revisions to both the root
zone and ccTLD zone itself.  Ideally, these changes should be
implemented as simultaneously as possible, so as to minimize data
mismatches.  (The DNS's design is very forgiving of minor data
mismatches between parent and child zones, but as the extent of mismatch
increases performance problems will become increasingly apparent, so it
is good practice to minimize data mismatches and other data
inaccuracies.)

Because the extent of the changes required to eliminate ns.eu.net from
all the domains it served, RIPE NCC agreed to take over the operation of
the ns.eu.net nameserver for a transition period, to allow the many
zones affected (including the 67 ccTLDs) to be migrated to other
nameservers in an orderly manner.  RIPE NCC is still operating that
nameserver, but has indicated that it wishes to conclude the transition
period within approximately one month.

The need to change nameserver assignments for 67 ccTLDs has
significantly increased the number of root-zone change requests the IANA
has received.  Of the 135 TLD nameserver change requests that the IANA
has received during 2002, 43 have been related to the upcoming
discontinuance of nameservice by ns.eu.net.  Of these 43 requests to
change ccTLD nameservers from ns.eu.net, 41 changes have been completed
and 2 changes are in progress.  (The handling of nameserver-change
requests involves steps to authenticate that the request comes from
authorized TLD personnel, to confirm that the requested new nameserver
is functioning, and to verify that the sequence of changes requested
will not involve an interruption of service.)

To ensure that the nameserver changes involving ns.eu.net can be
completed before the end of the transition period, the IANA and US
Department of Commerce (which must approve the changes) have prioritized
these requests.

As the transition period for ns.eu.net nears its conclusion, there
remain 24 TLDs listing that nameserver where the managers have not yet
submitted requests.  Although the change process is ordinarily triggered
by a TLD manager submitting a request, to address the ns.eu.net
situation the IANA has been actively suggesting to managers for these
TLDs that the listing of ns.eu.net for their TLDs be removed.  Of the 24
remaining TLDs, the IANA has prompted 8 to submit change requests, and
expects to prompt the managers of the other remaining TLDs within the
next week.  Although at times it is difficult to reach some ccTLD
managers, the IANA's goal is to complete changes to all the affected
TLDs by the time that ns.eu.net's operation is finally concluded.

One of the two pending nameserver-change requests involving ns.eu.net
(this is in addition to one non-ns.eu.net-related nameserver change
request) involves a difference of views between the ccLTD manager and
the IANA over the application of an IANA procedure for checking data
accuracy through a zone-file review.  We have suggested a resolution of
the matter to that ccTLD manager and expect that a mutually satisfactory
resolution will be implemented in the next several days, thereby
allowing a coordinated migration of that ccTLD (both in the root zone
and in the ccTLD zone) off of ns.eu.net well in advance of the
termination of service from ns.eu.net.

Since I understand that the orderly migration from nameservice
previously provided by KPNQwest is of special interest to the Names
Council, we will report again to you on the status when termination of
that nameserver's operation becomes imminent.

Best regards,

Louis Touton