@@=====""OpenNIC"" DNS Specification=====@@
===Status: second working draft===
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The DNS architecture for ""OpenNIC"" into 2007 has been pretty sound, with the exception of the "single point of failure" at ns0 due to a policy of all TLDs, both ""OpenNIC"" and ICANN, being aggregated into a single distributed root zone on that host alone.

Important and useful elments of this structure are preserved in the following suggestion for moving forward..

~- each TLD must sponsor one tier1 and preferably one tier2 DNS server
~~- each TLD's tier1 server is authoritative master for their TLD zone, and slave for the other TLDs and root.

~- tier1 servers should provide appropriate responses to querys from recursing (tier2) nameservers
~~- i.e. they do not need to provide recursive answers to the general public. 
~- all tier1 servers must provide public authoritative response for all ""OpenNIC"" TLDs and the root
~~- for Bind configurations, tier1 hosts will have 'zone' declarations for each ""OpenNIC"" TLD and the root
~- all tier1 servers must provide bi-directional zone transfer with all other tier1 servers
~~- DNSSEC required for transfer between tier1 hosts ?? ref. DNSSEC deliberation
~~- Policy for xfer to others than tier1 ?? ref. Xfer Deliberation
 
~- all tier2 servers provide recursive response to anybody and everybody so that the public can use them for all internet access.
~~- for Bind configurations, tier2 hosts need only one 'zone' declaration as slave for the root zone '.' , with tier1 masters.
~~~- Can/Should we provide/support a "hint" zone file ?? ref. HintDeliberation
~~- Ideally user ISPs would provide this service, but somebody has to, and more is better.

~- Zone files must specify the authoritative master in the SOA record, and should provide NS records for all tier1 hosts 
~- Zone file SOA serials shall be in the form of yyyymmddnn where yyyy=year, mm=month(numeric), dd=date, n is in the range 0..9

~- ns0 should not be an authoritative host for anything other than root, but may serve as tier1

A single ns0 (tier0) host could continue to aggregate all the ICANN and other zones for integration into the tier1 distribution; however, several tier1 hosts should have the ability to become tier0/ns0 in the event ns0 goes out of service, thereby removing the historic single point of failure.

The tricky part about a distributed root is that the root zone which is authoritative for '.' must contain ALL served TLDs, aggregating ""OpenNIC""'s zones with ICANN's and others; and discovery of which TLDs are being used/served.


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CategoryArchitecture
CategoryHostmastering