3 ms·

Special-Use Domain Names

59 points by chatmasta 3y ago

XorNot 3y ago
It's annoying that ".internal" isn't one of these, since mDNS uses ".local" by default - I've seen a lot of orgs using that in particular to avoid exactly the mDNS clash.
- nicolas_17 3y ago
  There was a proposal for that but it seems it got abandoned: https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-wkumari-dnsop-internal-00 https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-wkumari-dnsop-in...
- alyandon 3y ago
  I decided after much consternation to hijack ".home" for my home network although ".internal" was also in the running. I really wish they hadn't just ignored the actual existing usage of ".local" when they decided to reserve it exclusively for mDNS.
urbandw311er 3y ago
How come they set aside `onion`?
- masfuerte 3y ago
  Tor (The Onion Router) uses it.
- dfc 3y ago
  If you click the RFC link next to any of the domains it takes you to a page describing the use case. The .onion RFC is: https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc7686.html https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc7686.html
manwithaplan 3y ago
Also, test IDN top-level domains: https://www.iana.org/domains/reserved https://www.iana.org/domains/reserved
schlarpc 3y ago
Whoa, .alt is finally a proposed standard with a real RFC number. Really happy about this, it's sorely needed in some spaces.
- xena 3y ago
  Where would this be used?
  - jonesetc 3y ago
    My first thought is a java package or mobile app id that you don't want to tie to some real web resource.
  - KirillPanov 3y ago
    Anywhere you need a domain name that you are sure will never, ever, ever resolve via the root DNS servers at any point in the future. ICANN fights tooth and nail to eliminate these. As far as they are concerned, every syntactically-valid domain name except .arpa and .example.{com,net,org} is theirs to sell -- even if they choose not to do so at the current moment. RFC9476 is basically the IETF finally getting fed up with ICANN's nonsense. One concrete example is adding more onion-like namespaces. As long as the name is cryptographically self-certifying, you don't need a central authority to manage it. But it is generally a good idea to use a section of the namespace that the central authority isn't going to simply put up for sale at some point in the future. It's actually in their interest to do this, in order to sabotage competing decentralized protocols. Or they might just talk a lot about doing it, in order to scare people. For example, I2P has .b32 which is their version of .onion. Tor shouldn't be special; other projects should be allowed to try out new ideas.
ChrisArchitect 3y ago
"Last Updated 2023-09-15" what's new here?
- bradly 3y ago
  .alt is no longer in draft and was given an RFC number.
Borg3 3y ago
Its a shame that .lan and .wan arent on lists too.
siwyd 3y ago
I like the invalid. TLD. Naming things is hard and that's a good one to use when you need to provide a FQDN that serves no actual purpose. Case in point: Amazon CloudFront always requires you to provide an origin, even if you're not sending any traffic to it. So using something like "origin.invalid" makes it just a tad more self-explanatory.

59 points by chatmasta 3y ago

It's annoying that ".internal" isn't one of these, since mDNS uses ".local" by default - I've seen a lot of orgs using that in particular to avoid exactly the mDNS clash.

nicolas_17 3y ago
There was a proposal for that but it seems it got abandoned: https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-wkumari-dnsop-internal-00 https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-wkumari-dnsop-in...
alyandon 3y ago
I decided after much consternation to hijack ".home" for my home network although ".internal" was also in the running. I really wish they hadn't just ignored the actual existing usage of ".local" when they decided to reserve it exclusively for mDNS.

urbandw311er 3y ago

How come they set aside `onion`?

masfuerte 3y ago
Tor (The Onion Router) uses it.
dfc 3y ago
If you click the RFC link next to any of the domains it takes you to a page describing the use case. The .onion RFC is: https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc7686.html https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc7686.html

manwithaplan 3y ago

Also, test IDN top-level domains: https://www.iana.org/domains/reserved https://www.iana.org/domains/reserved

schlarpc 3y ago

Whoa, .alt is finally a proposed standard with a real RFC number. Really happy about this, it's sorely needed in some spaces.

xena 3y ago
Where would this be used?
- jonesetc 3y ago
  My first thought is a java package or mobile app id that you don't want to tie to some real web resource.
- KirillPanov 3y ago
  Anywhere you need a domain name that you are sure will never, ever, ever resolve via the root DNS servers at any point in the future. ICANN fights tooth and nail to eliminate these. As far as they are concerned, every syntactically-valid domain name except .arpa and .example.{com,net,org} is theirs to sell -- even if they choose not to do so at the current moment. RFC9476 is basically the IETF finally getting fed up with ICANN's nonsense. One concrete example is adding more onion-like namespaces. As long as the name is cryptographically self-certifying, you don't need a central authority to manage it. But it is generally a good idea to use a section of the namespace that the central authority isn't going to simply put up for sale at some point in the future. It's actually in their interest to do this, in order to sabotage competing decentralized protocols. Or they might just talk a lot about doing it, in order to scare people. For example, I2P has .b32 which is their version of .onion. Tor shouldn't be special; other projects should be allowed to try out new ideas.

ChrisArchitect 3y ago

"Last Updated 2023-09-15" what's new here?

bradly 3y ago
.alt is no longer in draft and was given an RFC number.

Borg3 3y ago

Its a shame that .lan and .wan arent on lists too.

siwyd 3y ago

I like the invalid. TLD. Naming things is hard and that's a good one to use when you need to provide a FQDN that serves no actual purpose. Case in point: Amazon CloudFront always requires you to provide an origin, even if you're not sending any traffic to it. So using something like "origin.invalid" makes it just a tad more self-explanatory.