


Network Working Group                                         J. Klensin
Internet-Draft                                           January 6, 2010
Obsoletes: 3490, 3491
(if approved)
Updates: 3492 (if approved)
Intended status: Standards Track
Expires: July 10, 2010


    Internationalized Domain Names in Applications (IDNA): Protocol
                  draft-ietf-idnabis-protocol-18.txt

Abstract

   This document is the revised protocol definition for
   internationalized domain names (IDNs).  The rationale for changes,
   the relationship to the older specification, and important
   terminology are provided in other documents.  This document specifies
   the protocol mechanism, called Internationalized Domain Names in
   Applications (IDNA), for registering and looking up IDNs in a way
   that does not require changes to the DNS itself.  IDNA is only meant
   for processing domain names, not free text.

Status of this Memo

   This Internet-Draft is submitted to IETF in full conformance with the
   provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.

   Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering
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   This Internet-Draft will expire on July 10, 2010.

Copyright Notice




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   Copyright (c) 2010 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
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Table of Contents

   1.  Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  4
     1.1.  Discussion Forum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  4
   2.  Terminology  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  4
   3.  Requirements and Applicability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  5
     3.1.  Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  5
     3.2.  Applicability  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  5
       3.2.1.  DNS Resource Records . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  6
       3.2.2.  Non-domain-name Data Types Stored in the DNS . . . . .  6
   4.  Registration Protocol  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  6
     4.1.  Input to IDNA Registration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  7
     4.2.  Permitted Character and Label Validation . . . . . . . . .  7
       4.2.1.  Input Format . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  7
       4.2.2.  Rejection of Characters that are not Permitted . . . .  8
       4.2.3.  Label Validation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  8
       4.2.4.  Registration Validation Requirements . . . . . . . . .  9
     4.3.  Registry Restrictions  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  9
     4.4.  Punycode Conversion  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  9
     4.5.  Insertion in the Zone  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
   5.  Domain Name Lookup Protocol  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
     5.1.  Label String Input . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
     5.2.  Conversion to Unicode  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
     5.3.  A-label Input  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
     5.4.  Validation and Character List Testing  . . . . . . . . . . 11
     5.5.  Punycode Conversion  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
     5.6.  DNS Name Resolution  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
   6.  Security Considerations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
   7.  IANA Considerations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
   8.  Contributors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
   9.  Acknowledgments  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
   10. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
     10.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
     10.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
   Appendix A.  Summary of Major Changes from IDNA2003  . . . . . . . 16
   Appendix B.  Change Log  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
     B.1.  Changes between Version -00 and -01 of
           draft-ietf-idnabis-protocol  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
     B.2.  Version -02  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
     B.3.  Version -03  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
     B.4.  Version -04  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
     B.5.  Version -05  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
     B.6.  Version -06  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
     B.7.  Version -07  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
     B.8.  Version -08  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
     B.9.  Version -09  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
     B.10. Version -10  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
     B.11. Version -11  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20



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     B.12. Version -12  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
     B.13. Version -13  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
     B.14. Version -14  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
     B.15. Version -15  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
     B.16. Version -16  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
     B.17. Version -17  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
     B.18. Version -18  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
   Author's Address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23











































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1.  Introduction

   This document supplies the protocol definition for internationalized
   domain names.  Essential definitions and terminology for
   understanding this document and a road map of the collection of
   documents that make up IDNA2008 appear in [IDNA2008-Defs].
   Appendix A discusses the relationship between this specification and
   the earlier version of IDNA (referred to here as "IDNA2003").  The
   rationale for these changes, along with considerable explanatory
   material and advice to zone administrators who support IDNs is
   provided in another document, [IDNA2008-Rationale].

   IDNA works by allowing applications to use certain ASCII string
   labels (beginning with a special prefix) to represent non-ASCII name
   labels.  Lower-layer protocols need not be aware of this; therefore
   IDNA does not change any infrastructure.  In particular, IDNA does
   not depend on any changes to DNS servers, resolvers, or DNS protocol
   elements, because the ASCII name service provided by the existing DNS
   can be used for IDNA.

   IDNA applies only to a specific subset of DNS labels.  The base DNS
   standards [RFC1034] [RFC1035] and their various updates specify how
   to combine labels into fully-qualified domain names and parse labels
   out of those names.

   This document describes two separate protocols, one for IDN
   registration (Section 4) and one for IDN lookup (Section 5).  These
   two protocols share some terminology, reference data and operations.

1.1.  Discussion Forum

   [[ RFC Editor: please remove this section. ]]

   This work is being discussed in the IETF IDNABIS WG and on the
   mailing list idna-update@alvestrand.no


2.  Terminology

   Terminology used as part of the definition of IDNA appears in
   [IDNA2008-Defs].  It is worth noting that some of this terminology
   overlaps with, and is consistent with, that used in Unicode or other
   character set standards and the DNS.  Readers of this document are
   assumed to be familiar with [IDNA2008-Defs] and with the DNS-specific
   terminology in RFC 1034 [RFC1034].

   The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
   "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this



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   document are to be interpreted as described in BCP 14, RFC 2119
   [RFC2119].


3.  Requirements and Applicability

3.1.  Requirements

   IDNA makes the following requirements:

   1.  Whenever a domain name is put into an IDN-unaware domain name
       slot (see Section 2 and [IDNA2008-Defs]), it MUST contain only
       ASCII characters (i.e., its labels must be either A-labels or NR-
       LDH-labels), unless the DNS application is not subject to
       historical recommendations for "hostname"-style names (see
       [RFC1034] and Section 3.2.1).

   2.  Labels MUST be compared using equivalent forms: either both
       A-Label forms or both U-Label forms.  Because A-labels and
       U-labels can be transformed into each other without loss of
       information, these comparisons are equivalent.  A pair of
       A-labels MUST be compared as case-insensitive ASCII (as with all
       comparisons of ASCII DNS labels).  U-labels MUST be compared
       as-is, without case-folding or other intermediate steps.  Note
       that it is not necessary to validate labels in order to compare
       them and that successful comparison does not imply validity.  In
       many cases, not limited to comparison, validation may be
       important for other reasons and SHOULD be performed.

   3.  Labels being registered MUST conform to the requirements of
       Section 4.  Labels being looked up and the lookup process MUST
       conform to the requirements of Section 5.

3.2.  Applicability

   IDNA applies to all domain names in all domain name slots in
   protocols except where it is explicitly excluded.  It does not apply
   to domain name slots which do not use the Letter/Digit/Hyphen (LDH)
   syntax rules.

   Because IDNA uses the DNS, IDNA applies to many protocols that were
   specified before it was designed.  IDNs occupying domain name slots
   in those older protocols MUST be in A-label form until and unless
   those protocols and their implementations are explicitly upgraded to
   be aware of IDNs.  IDNs actually appearing in DNS queries or
   responses MUST be A-labels.

   IDNA-aware protocols and implementations MAY accept U-labels,



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   A-labels, or both as those particular protocols specify.

   IDNA is not defined for extended label types (see RFC 2671, Section 3
   [RFC2671]).

3.2.1.  DNS Resource Records

   IDNA applies only to domain names in the NAME and RDATA fields of DNS
   resource records whose CLASS is IN.  See RFC 1035 [RFC1035] for
   precise definitions of these terms.

   The application of IDNA to DNS resource records depends entirely on
   the CLASS of the record, and not on the TYPE except as noted below.
   This will remain true, even as new types are defined, unless a new
   type defines type-specific rules.  Special naming conventions for SRV
   records (and "underscore labels" more generally) are incompatible
   with IDNA coding as discussed in [IDNA2008-Defs], especially Section
   2.3.2.3.  Of course, underscore labels may be part of a domain that
   uses IDN labels at higher levels in the tree.

3.2.2.  Non-domain-name Data Types Stored in the DNS

   Although IDNA enables the representation of non-ASCII characters in
   domain names, that does not imply that IDNA enables the
   representation of non-ASCII characters in other data types that are
   stored in domain names, specifically in the RDATA field for types
   that have structured RDATA format.  For example, an email address
   local part is stored in a domain name in the RNAME field as part of
   the RDATA of an SOA record (hostmaster@example.com would be
   represented as hostmaster.example.com).  IDNA does not update the
   existing email standards, which allow only ASCII characters in local
   parts.  Even though work is in progress to define
   internationalization for email addresses [RFC4952], changes to the
   email address part of the SOA RDATA would require action in, or
   updates to, other standards, specifically those that specify the
   format of the SOA RR.


4.  Registration Protocol

   This section defines the model for registering an IDN.  The model is
   implementation independent; any sequence of steps that produces
   exactly the same result for all labels is considered a valid
   implementation.

   Note that, while the registration (this section) and lookup protocols
   (Section 5) are very similar in most respects, they are not identical
   and implementers should carefully follow the steps described in this



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   specification.

4.1.  Input to IDNA Registration

   Registration processes, especially processing by entities (often
   called "registrars") who deal with registrants before the request
   actually reaches the zone manager ("registry") are outside the scope
   of this definition and may differ significantly depending on local
   needs.  By the time a string enters the IDNA registration process as
   described in this specification, it MUST be in Unicode and in
   Normalization Form C (NFC [Unicode-UAX15]).  Entities responsible for
   zone files ("registries") MUST accept only the exact string for which
   registration is requested, free of any mappings or local adjustments.
   They MAY accept that input in any of three forms:

   1.  As a pair of A-label and U-label.

   2.  As an A-label only.

   3.  As a U-label only.

   The first two of these forms are RECOMMENDED because the use of
   A-labels avoids any possibility of ambiguity.  The first is normally
   preferred over the second because it permits further verification of
   user intent (see Section 4.2.1).

4.2.  Permitted Character and Label Validation

4.2.1.  Input Format

   If both the U-label and A-label forms are available, the registry
   MUST ensure that the A-label form is in lower case, perform a
   conversion to a U-label, perform the steps and tests described below
   on that U-label, and then verify that the A-label produced by the
   step in Section 4.4 matches the one provided as input.  In addition,
   the U-label that was provided as input and the one obtained by
   conversion of the A-label MUST match exactly.  If, for some reason,
   these tests fail, the registration MUST be rejected.

   If only an A-label was provided and the conversion to a U-label is
   not performed, the registry MUST still verify that the A-label is
   superficially valid, i.e., that it does not violate any of the rules
   of Punycode [RFC3492] encoding such as the prohibition on trailing
   hyphen-minus, appearance of non-basic characters before the
   delimiter, and so on.  Strings that appear to be A-labels (e.g., they
   start with "xn--") and strings that are supplied to the registry in a
   context (such as a field in a form to be filled out) reserved for
   A-labels, but that are not valid A-labels as described in this



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   paragraph, MUST NOT be placed in DNS zones that support IDNA.

   If only an A-label is provided, the conversion to a U-label is not
   performed, and the superficial tests described in the previous
   paragraph are performed, registration procedures MAY, and usually
   will, bypass the tests and actions in the balance of Section 4.2 and
   in Section 4.3 and Section 4.4.

4.2.2.  Rejection of Characters that are not Permitted

   The candidate Unicode string MUST NOT contain characters that appear
   in the "DISALLOWED" and "UNASSIGNED" lists specified in
   [IDNA2008-Tables].

4.2.3.  Label Validation

   The proposed label (in the form of a Unicode string, i.e., a string
   that at least superficially appears to be a U-label) is then
   examined, performing tests that require examination of more than one
   character.  Character order is considered to be the on-the-wire
   order, not the display order.

4.2.3.1.  Hyphen Restrictions

   The Unicode string MUST NOT contain "--" (two consecutive hyphens) in
   the third and fourth character positions and MUST NOT start or end
   with a "-" (hyphen).

4.2.3.2.  Leading Combining Marks

   The Unicode string MUST NOT begin with a combining mark or combining
   character (see The Unicode Standard, Section 2.11 [Unicode] for an
   exact definition).

4.2.3.3.  Contextual Rules

   The Unicode string MUST NOT contain any characters whose validity is
   context-dependent, unless the validity is positively confirmed by a
   contextual rule.  To check this, each code-point marked as CONTEXTJ
   or CONTEXTO in [IDNA2008-Tables] MUST have a non-null rule.  If such
   a code-point is missing a rule, it is invalid.  If the rule exists
   but the result of applying the rule is negative or inconclusive, the
   proposed label is invalid.

4.2.3.4.  Labels Containing Characters Written Right to Left

   If the proposed label contains any characters that are written from
   right to left it MUST meet the BIDI criteria [IDNA2008-BIDI].



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4.2.4.  Registration Validation Requirements

   Strings that contain at least one non-ASCII character, have been
   produced by the steps above, whose contents pass all of the tests in
   Section 4.2.3, and are 63 or fewer characters long in ACE form (see
   Section 4.4), are U-labels.

   To summarize, tests are made in Section 4.2 for invalid characters,
   invalid combinations of characters, for labels that are invalid even
   if the characters they contain are valid individually, and for labels
   that do not conform to the restrictions for strings containing right
   to left characters.

4.3.  Registry Restrictions

   In addition to the rules and tests above, there are many reasons why
   a registry could reject a label.  Registries at all levels of the
   DNS, not just the top level, are expected to establish policies about
   label registrations.  Policies are likely to be informed by the local
   languages and the scripts that are used to write them and may depend
   on many factors including what characters are in the label (for
   example, a label may be rejected based on other labels already
   registered).  See [IDNA2008-Rationale] Section 3.2 for a discussion
   and recommendations about registry policies.

   The string produced by the steps in Section 4.2 is checked and
   processed as appropriate to local registry restrictions.  Application
   of those registry restrictions may result in the rejection of some
   labels or the application of special restrictions to others.

4.4.  Punycode Conversion

   The resulting U-label is converted to an A-label (defined in Section
   2.3.2.1 of [IDNA2008-Defs]).  The A-label is the encoding of the
   U-label according to the Punycode algorithm [RFC3492] with the ACE
   prefix "xn--" added at the beginning of the string.  The resulting
   string must, of course, conform to the length limits imposed by the
   DNS.  This document does not update or alter the Punycode algorithm
   specified in RFC 3492 in any way.  That document does make a non-
   normative reference to the information about the value and
   construction of the ACE prefix that appears "in RFC 3490 or Nameprep
   [RFC3491]".  For consistency and reader convenience, IDNA2008
   effectively updates that reference to point to this document.  That
   change does not alter the prefix itself.  The prefix, "xn--", is the
   same in both sets of documents.

   With the exception of the maximum string length test on Punycode
   output, the failure conditions identified in the Punycode encoding



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   procedure cannot occur if the input is a U-label as determined by the
   steps in Section 4.1 through Section 4.3 above.

4.5.  Insertion in the Zone

   The label is registered in the DNS by inserting the A-label into a
   zone.


5.  Domain Name Lookup Protocol

   Lookup is different from registration and different tests are applied
   on the client.  Although some validity checks are necessary to avoid
   serious problems with the protocol, the lookup-side tests are more
   permissive and rely on the assumption that names that are present in
   the DNS are valid.  That assumption is, however, a weak one because
   the presence of wild cards in the DNS might cause a string that is
   not actually registered in the DNS to be successfully looked up.

5.1.  Label String Input

   The user supplies a string in the local character set, for example by
   typing it or clicking on, or copying and pasting, a resource
   identifier, e.g., a URI [RFC3986] or IRI [RFC3987] from which the
   domain name is extracted.  Alternately, some process not directly
   involving the user may read the string from a file or obtain it in
   some other way.  Processing in this step and that specified in
   Section 5.2 are local matters, to be accomplished prior to actual
   invocation of IDNA.

5.2.  Conversion to Unicode

   The string is converted from the local character set into Unicode, if
   it is not already in Unicode.  Depending on local needs, this
   conversion may involve mapping some characters into other characters
   as well as coding conversions.  Those issues are discussed in
   [IDNA2008-Mapping] and the mapping-related sections (Sections 4.4, 6,
   and 7.3) of [IDNA2008-Rationale].  The result MUST be a Unicode
   string in NFC form.

5.3.  A-label Input

   If the input to this procedure appears to be an A-label (i.e., it
   starts in "xn--", interpreted case-insensitively), the lookup
   application MAY attempt to convert it to a U-label, first ensuring
   that the A-label is entirely in lower case (converting it to lower
   case if necessary), and apply the tests of Section 5.4 and the
   conversion of Section 5.5 to that form.  If the label is converted to



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   Unicode (i.e., to U-label form) using the Punycode decoding
   algorithm, then the processing specified in those two sections MUST
   be performed, and the label MUST be rejected if the resulting label
   is not identical to the original.  See Section 8.1 of
   [IDNA2008-Rationale] for additional discussion on this topic.

   Conversion from the A-label and testing that the result is a U-label
   SHOULD be performed if the domain name will later be presented to the
   user in native character form (this requires that the lookup
   application be IDNA-aware).  If those steps are not performed, the
   lookup process SHOULD at least test to determine that the string is
   actually an A-label, examining it for the invalid formats specified
   in the Punycode decoding specification.  Applications that are not
   IDNA-aware will obviously omit that testing; others MAY treat the
   string as opaque to avoid the additional processing at the expense of
   providing less protection and information to users.

5.4.  Validation and Character List Testing

   As with the registration procedure described in Section 4, the
   Unicode string is checked to verify that all characters that appear
   in it are valid as input to IDNA lookup processing.  As discussed
   above and in [IDNA2008-Rationale], the lookup check is more liberal
   than the registration one.  Labels that have not been fully evaluated
   for conformance to the applicable rules are referred to as "putative"
   labels as discussed in Section 2.3.2.1 of [IDNA2008-Defs].  Putative
   labels with any of the following characteristics MUST be rejected
   prior to DNS lookup:

   o  Labels that are not in NFC [Unicode-UAX15].

   o  Labels containing "--" (two consecutive hyphens) in the third and
      fourth character positions.

   o  Labels whose first character is a combining mark (see The Unicode
      Standard, Section 2.11 [Unicode]).

   o  Labels containing prohibited code points, i.e., those that are
      assigned to the "DISALLOWED" category of [IDNA2008-Tables].

   o  Labels containing code points that are identified in
      [IDNA2008-Tables] as "CONTEXTJ", i.e., requiring exceptional
      contextual rule processing on lookup, but that do not conform to
      those rules.  Note that this implies that a rule must be defined,
      not null: a character that requires a contextual rule but for
      which the rule is null is treated in this step as having failed to
      conform to the rule.




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   o  Labels containing code points that are identified in
      [IDNA2008-Tables] as "CONTEXTO", but for which no such rule
      appears in the table of rules.  Applications resolving DNS names
      or carrying out equivalent operations are not required to test
      contextual rules for "CONTEXTO" characters, only to verify that a
      rule is defined (although they MAY make such tests to provide
      better protection or give better information to the user).

   o  Labels containing code points that are unassigned in the version
      of Unicode being used by the application, i.e.,in the UNASSIGNED
      category of [IDNA2008-Tables].

      This requirement means that the application must use a list of
      unassigned characters that is matched to the version of Unicode
      that is being used for the other requirements in this section.  It
      is not required that the application know which version of Unicode
      is being used; that information might be part of the operating
      environment in which the application is running.

   In addition, the application SHOULD apply the following test.

   o  Verification that the string is compliant with the requirements
      for right to left characters, specified in [IDNA2008-BIDI].

   This test may be omitted in special circumstances, such as when the
   lookup application knows that the conditions are enforced elsewhere,
   because an attempt to look up and resolve such strings will almost
   certainly lead to a DNS lookup failure except when wild cards are
   present in the zone.  However, applying the test is likely to give
   much better information about the reason for a lookup failure --
   information that may be usefully passed to the user when that is
   feasible -- than DNS resolution failure information alone.

   For all other strings, the lookup application MUST rely on the
   presence or absence of labels in the DNS to determine the validity of
   those labels and the validity of the characters they contain.  If
   they are registered, they are presumed to be valid; if they are not,
   their possible validity is not relevant.  While a lookup application
   may reasonably issue warnings about strings it believes may be
   problematic, applications that decline to process a string that
   conforms to the rules above (i.e., does not look it up in the DNS)
   are not in conformance with this protocol.

5.5.  Punycode Conversion

   The string that has now been validated for lookup is converted to ACE
   form by applying the Punycode algorithm to the string and then adding
   the ACE prefix.



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5.6.  DNS Name Resolution

   The A-label resulting from the conversion in Section 5.5 or supplied
   directly (see Section 5.3) is combined with other labels as needed to
   form a fully-qualified domain name which is then looked up in the
   DNS, using normal DNS resolver procedures.  The lookup can obviously
   either succeed (returning information) or fail.


6.  Security Considerations

   Security Considerations for this version of IDNA are described in
   [IDNA2008-Defs], except for the special issues associated with right
   to left scripts and characters.  The latter are discussed in
   [IDNA2008-BIDI].

   In order to avoid intentional or accidental attacks from labels that
   might be confused with others, special problems in rendering, and so
   on, the IDNA model requires that registries exercise care and
   thoughtfulness about what labels they choose to permit.  That issue
   is discussed in Section 4.3 of this document which, in turn, points
   to a somewhat more extensive discussion in [IDNA2008-Rationale].


7.  IANA Considerations

   IANA actions for this version of IDNA are specified in
   [IDNA2008-Tables] and discussed informally in [IDNA2008-Rationale].
   The components of IDNA described in this document do not require any
   IANA actions.


8.  Contributors

   While the listed editor held the pen, the original versions of this
   document represent the joint work and conclusions of an ad hoc design
   team consisting of the editor and, in alphabetic order, Harald
   Alvestrand, Tina Dam, Patrik Faltstrom, and Cary Karp.  This document
   draws significantly on the original version of IDNA [RFC3490] both
   conceptually and for specific text.  This second-generation version
   would not have been possible without the work that went into that
   first version and especially the contributions of its authors Patrik
   Faltstrom, Paul Hoffman, and Adam Costello.  While Faltstrom was
   actively involved in the creation of this version, Hoffman and
   Costello were not and should not be held responsible for any errors
   or omissions.





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9.  Acknowledgments

   This revision to IDNA would have been impossible without the
   accumulated experience since RFC 3490 was published and resulting
   comments and complaints of many people in the IETF, ICANN, and other
   communities, too many people to list here.  Nor would it have been
   possible without RFC 3490 itself and the efforts of the Working Group
   that defined it.  Those people whose contributions are acknowledged
   in RFC 3490, [RFC4690], and [IDNA2008-Rationale] were particularly
   important.

   Specific textual changes were incorporated into this document after
   suggestions from the other contributors, Stephane Bortzmeyer, Vint
   Cerf, Lisa Dusseault, Paul Hoffman, Kent Karlsson, James Mitchell,
   Erik van der Poel, Marcos Sanz, Andrew Sullivan, Wil Tan, Ken
   Whistler, Chris Wright, and other WG participants and reviewers
   including Martin Duerst, James Mitchell, Subramanian Moonesamy, Peter
   Saint-Andre, Margaret Wasserman, and Dan Winship who caught specific
   errors and recommended corrections.  Special thanks are due to Paul
   Hoffman for permission to extract material from his Internet-Draft to
   form the basis for Appendix A.


10.  References

10.1.  Normative References

   [IDNA2008-BIDI]
              Alvestrand, H. and C. Karp, "An updated IDNA criterion for
              right-to-left scripts", August 2009, <https://
              datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/draft-ietf-idnabis-bidi/>.

   [IDNA2008-Defs]
              Klensin, J., "Internationalized Domain Names for
              Applications (IDNA): Definitions and Document Framework",
              August 2009, <https://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/
              draft-ietf-idnabis-defs/>.

   [IDNA2008-Tables]
              Faltstrom, P., "The Unicode Codepoints and IDNA",
              August 2009, <https://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/
              draft-ietf-idnabis-tables/>.

              A version of this document is available in HTML format at
              http://stupid.domain.name/idnabis/
              draft-ietf-idnabis-tables-06.html

   [RFC1034]  Mockapetris, P., "Domain names - concepts and facilities",



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              STD 13, RFC 1034, November 1987.

   [RFC1035]  Mockapetris, P., "Domain names - implementation and
              specification", STD 13, RFC 1035, November 1987.

   [RFC1123]  Braden, R., "Requirements for Internet Hosts - Application
              and Support", STD 3, RFC 1123, October 1989.

   [RFC2119]  Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
              Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.

   [RFC3492]  Costello, A., "Punycode: A Bootstring encoding of Unicode
              for Internationalized Domain Names in Applications
              (IDNA)", RFC 3492, March 2003.

   [Unicode-UAX15]
              The Unicode Consortium, "Unicode Standard Annex #15:
              Unicode Normalization Forms", 2006,
              <http://www.unicode.org/reports/tr15/>.

10.2.  Informative References

   [ASCII]    American National Standards Institute (formerly United
              States of America Standards Institute), "USA Code for
              Information Interchange", ANSI X3.4-1968, 1968.

              ANSI X3.4-1968 has been replaced by newer versions with
              slight modifications, but the 1968 version remains
              definitive for the Internet.

   [IDNA2008-Mapping]
              Resnick, P. and P. Hoffman, "Mapping Characters in IDNA",
              September 2009, <https://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/
              draft-ietf-idnabis-mapping/>.

   [IDNA2008-Rationale]
              Klensin, J., Ed., "Internationalized Domain Names for
              Applications (IDNA): Issues, Explanation, and Rationale",
              February 2009, <https://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/
              draft-ietf-idnabis-rationale>.

   [RFC2181]  Elz, R. and R. Bush, "Clarifications to the DNS
              Specification", RFC 2181, July 1997.

   [RFC2671]  Vixie, P., "Extension Mechanisms for DNS (EDNS0)",
              RFC 2671, August 1999.

   [RFC3490]  Faltstrom, P., Hoffman, P., and A. Costello,



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              "Internationalizing Domain Names in Applications (IDNA)",
              RFC 3490, March 2003.

   [RFC3491]  Hoffman, P. and M. Blanchet, "Nameprep: A Stringprep
              Profile for Internationalized Domain Names (IDN)",
              RFC 3491, March 2003.

   [RFC3986]  Berners-Lee, T., Fielding, R., and L. Masinter, "Uniform
              Resource Identifier (URI): Generic Syntax", STD 66,
              RFC 3986, January 2005.

   [RFC3987]  Duerst, M. and M. Suignard, "Internationalized Resource
              Identifiers (IRIs)", RFC 3987, January 2005.

   [RFC4690]  Klensin, J., Faltstrom, P., Karp, C., and IAB, "Review and
              Recommendations for Internationalized Domain Names
              (IDNs)", RFC 4690, September 2006.

   [RFC4952]  Klensin, J. and Y. Ko, "Overview and Framework for
              Internationalized Email", RFC 4952, July 2007.

   [Unicode]  The Unicode Consortium, "The Unicode Standard, Version
              5.0", 2007.

              Boston, MA, USA: Addison-Wesley.  ISBN 0-321-48091-0.
              This printed reference has now been updated online to
              reflect additional codepoints.  For codepoints, the
              reference at the time this document was published is to
              Unicode 5.2.


Appendix A.  Summary of Major Changes from IDNA2003

   1.   Update base character set from Unicode 3.2 to Unicode version-
        agnostic.

   2.   Separate the definitions for the "registration" and "lookup"
        activities.

   3.   Disallow symbol and punctuation characters except where special
        exceptions are necessary.

   4.   Remove the mapping and normalization steps from the protocol and
        have them instead done by the applications themselves, possibly
        in a local fashion, before invoking the protocol.

   5.   Change the way that the protocol specifies which characters are
        allowed in labels from "humans decide what the table of



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        codepoints contains" to "decision about codepoints are based on
        Unicode properties plus a small exclusion list created by
        humans".

   6.   Introduce the new concept of characters that can be used only in
        specific contexts.

   7.   Allow typical words and names in languages such as Dhivehi and
        Yiddish to be expressed.

   8.   Make bidirectional domain names (delimited strings of labels,
        not just labels standing on their own) display in a less
        surprising fashion whether they appear in obvious domain name
        contexts or as part of running text in paragraphs.

   9.   Remove the dot separator from the mandatory part of the
        protocol.

   10.  Make some currently-valid labels that are not actually IDNA
        labels invalid.


Appendix B.  Change Log

   [[ RFC Editor: Please remove this appendix. ]]

B.1.  Changes between Version -00 and -01 of draft-ietf-idnabis-protocol

   o  Corrected discussion of SRV records.

   o  Several small corrections for clarity.

   o  Inserted more "open issue" placeholders.

B.2.  Version -02

   o  Rewrote the "conversion to Unicode" text in Section 5.2 as
      requested on-list.

   o  Added a comment (and reference) about EDNS0 to the "DNS Server
      Conventions" section, which was also retitled.

   o  Made several editorial corrections and improvements in response to
      various comments.

   o  Added several new discussion placeholder anchors and updated some
      older ones.




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B.3.  Version -03

   o  Trimmed change log, removing information about pre-WG drafts.

   o  Incorporated a number of changes suggested by Marcos Sanz in his
      note of 2008.07.17 and added several more placeholder anchors.

   o  Several minor editorial corrections and improvements.

   o  "Editor" designation temporarily removed because the automatic
      posting machinery does not accept it.

B.4.  Version -04

   o  Removed Contextual Rule appendices for transfer to Tables.

   o  Several changes, including removal of discussion anchors, based on
      discussions at IETF 72 (Dublin)

   o  Rewrote the preprocessing material (former Section 5.3) somewhat
      -- see Appendix B.14.

B.5.  Version -05

   o  Updated part of the A-label input explanation (Section 5.3) per
      note from Erik van der Poel.

B.6.  Version -06

   o  Corrected a few typographical errors.

   o  Incorporated the material (formerly in Rationale) on the
      relationship between IDNA2003 and IDNA2008 as an appendix and
      pointed to the new definitions document.

   o  Text modified in several places to recognize the dangers of
      interaction between DNS wild cards and IDNs.

   o  Text added to be explicit about the handling of edge and failure
      cases in Punycode encoding and decoding.

   o  Revised for consistency with the new Definitions document and to
      make the text read more smoothly.








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B.7.  Version -07

   o  Multiple small textual and editorial changes and clarifications.

   o  Requirement for normalization clarified to apply to all cases and
      conditions for preprocessing further clarified.

   o  Substantive change to Section 4.2.1, turning a SHOULD to a MUST
      (see note from Mark Davis, 19 November, 2008 18:14 -0800).

B.8.  Version -08

   o  Added some references and altered text to improve clarity.

   o  Changed the description of CONTEXTJ/CONTEXTO to conform to that in
      Tables.  In other words, these are now treated as distinction
      categories (again), rather than as specially-flagged subsets of
      PROTOCOL VALID.

   o  The discussion of label comparisons has been rewritten to make it
      more precise and to clarify that one does not need to verify that
      a string is a [valid] A-label or U-label in order to test it for
      equality with another string.  The WG should verify that the
      current text is what is desired.

   o  Other changes to reflect post-IETF discussions or editorial
      improvements.

B.9.  Version -09

   o  Removed Security Considerations material to Defs document.

   o  Removed the Name Server Considerations material to Rationale.
      That material is not normative and not needed to implement the
      protocol itself.

   o  Adjusted terminology to match new version of Defs.

   o  Removed all discussion of local mapping and option for it from
      registration protocol.  Such mapping is now completely prohibited
      on Registration.

   o  Removed some old placeholders and inquiries because no comments
      have been received.

   o  Small editorial corrections.





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B.10.  Version -10

   o  Rewrote the registration input material slightly to further
      clarify the "no mapping on registration" principle.

   o  Added placeholder notes about several tasks, notably reorganizing
      Section 4 and Section 5 so that subsection numbers are parallel.

   o  Cleaned up an incorrect use of the terms "A-label" and "U-label"
      in the lookup phase that was spotted by Mark Davis.  Inserted a
      note there about alternate ways to deal with the resulting
      terminology problem.

   o  Added a temporarily appendix (above) to document alternate
      strategies for possible replacements for the former Section 5.3
      (see Appendix B.14).

B.11.  Version -11

   o  Removed dangling reference to "C-label" (editing error in prior
      draft).

   o  Recast the last steps of the Lookup description to eliminate
      "apparent" (previously "putative") terminology.

   o  Rewrote major portions of the temporary appendix that describes
      transitional mappings to improve clarity and add context.

   o  Did some fine-tuning of terminology, notably in Section 3.2.1.

B.12.  Version -12

   o  Extensive editorial improvements, mostly due to suggestions from
      Lisa Dusseault.

   o  Conformance statements have been made consistent, especially in
      Section 4.2.1 and subsequent text, which said "SHOULD" in one
      place and then said "MAY" as the result of incomplete removal of
      registration-time mapping.  Also clarified the definition of
      "registration processes" in Section 4.1 -- the previous text had
      confused several people.

   o  A few new "question to the WG notes have been added about
      appropriateness or placement of text.  If there are no comments on
      the mailing list, the editor will apply his own judgment.

   o  Several of the usual small typos and other editorial errors have
      been corrected.



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   o  Section 5 has still not been reorganized to match Section 4 in
      structure and subsection numbering -- will be done as soon as the
      mapping decisions and references are final.

B.13.  Version -13

   o  Modified the "putative label" text to better explain the term and
      explicitly point back to Defs.

   o  Slight rewrite of former section 5.3 to clarify the NFC
      requirement and to start the transition toward having some of the
      explanation in the Mapping document.  That whole section has been
      removed in -14, see Appendix B.14 for more information.

B.14.  Version -14

   o  Fixed substantive typographical error caught by Wil Tan.

   o  Added a check for consecutive hyphens in positions 3 and 4 to
      Lookup.

   o  Reflected several changes suggested by Andrew Sullivan.

   o  Rearranged and rewrote material to reflect the mapping document
      and its status.

   o  The former Section 5.3 and Appendix A, which discussed mapping
      alternatives, have been dropped entirely.  Such discussion now
      belongs in the Mapping document, the portion of Rationale that
      supports it, or not at all.  Section 5.2 has been rewritten
      slightly to point to Mapping for those issues.

   o  Note: With the revised mapping material inserted, I've just about
      given up on the idea of having the subsections of Sections 4 and 5
      exactly parallel each other.  Anyone who still feels strongly
      about this should be prepared to make very specific suggestions.
      --JcK

B.15.  Version -15

   o  Corrected name of protocol in the abstract ("Internationalization"
      to "Internationalized") and a few other instances of that error.

   o  Corrected the hyphen test (Section 4.2.3.1).

   o  Added text to deal with the "upper case in A-labels" problem.





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   o  Adjusted Acknowledgments to remove Mark Davis's name, per his
      request and advice from IETF Trust Counsel.

   o  Incorporated other changes from WG Last Call.

   o  Small typographical and editorial corrections.

B.16.  Version -16

   o  Adjusted references to current versions.

   o  Adjusted discussion of changes to Punycode to make more precise.

   o  Inserted text to clarify version matching between IDNA and
      Unicode.

   o  Made several small changes based on Martin Duerst's review.

   o  Substituted in Section numbers in references to other IDNA2008
      documents.

B.17.  Version -17

   This is the version of the document produced to reflect comments on
   IETF Last Call.  For the convenience of those who made comments and
   of the IESG in evaluating them, this section therefore identifies
   non-editorial changes made in response to Last Call comments in
   somewhat more detail than may be usual.

   o  Eliminated the use of "Fake A-label" in this document because it
      was causing confusion.  Instead, the material in Section 4.2.1
      that used that terminology has been recast to be specific about
      the restriction.  (Margaret Wasserman, Ops Directorate review.)

   o  Additional paragraph added to Security Considerations to call out
      the Registry Restrictions/ permitted name policy issue.  (Margaret
      Wasserman, Ops Directorate review.)

   o  The statement "IDNA applies only to DNS labels" changed to "IDNA
      applies only to a specific subset of DNS labels" because it
      doesn't apply to all of them.  (Dan Winship review, 20091013)

   o  Clarified some "label" versus "domain name" terminology.  (Dan
      Winship review, 20091013)

   o  Corrected an error in reference to RFC 1034 to point to RFC 1035
      instead.  (Dan Winship review, 20091013)




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   o  Corrected title and a reference in 4.2.4.  (Dan Winship review,
      20091013)

   o  Restructured the last paragraph of Section 4.4 to finish
      reflecting the change removing the 63 octet limit on U-labels.
      (Dan Winship review, 20091013)

   o  Another patch to the case-sensitivity of A-labels.  (James
      Mitchell, 20091014)

   o  Added text to 3.2 to explicitly indicate that IDNA-aware
      applications may choose to accept A-labels, U-labels, or both.
      (Peter Saint-Andre, 20091019)

B.18.  Version -18

   Changes made in response to IESG post-Last-Call review.

   o  Several typographical and reference fixes.

   o  Added new paragraph to the end of Section 4.2.1 to clarify the
      relationship among the "no U-label" option and the rest of Section
      4.


Author's Address

   John C Klensin
   1770 Massachusetts Ave, Ste 322
   Cambridge, MA  02140
   USA

   Phone: +1 617 245 1457
   Email: john+ietf@jck.com

















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