********************************************************************** DDN MGT Bulletin 22 NETWORK INFO CENTER for 16 Mar 1984 DCA DDN Program Mgmt Office (415) 859-3695 NIC@SRI-NIC Defense Data Network MANAGEMENT BULLETIN The DDN MANAGEMENT BULLETIN is published by the Network Information Center under DCA contract as a means of communicating official policy, procedures and other information of concern to management personnel at DDN facilities. Back issues may be obtained by FTP from the directory at SRI-NIC [26.0.0.73 and 10.0.0.51]. ********************************************************************** DOMAIN NAMES TRANSITION This memo is intended to remind all host personnel that at 0800 EST on March 21, 1984 every host on the MILNET/ARPANET will acquire a new official host name in accordance with RFC 897, the "Domain Name System Implementation Schedule". Briefly, all existing official names will become nicknames, and the new official name will be formed by adding the domain name ".ARPA" to the old official name. Special attention should be paid to the possible problems that your site software may encounter with the new names. For example, the old entry for USC-ISIF is: HOST : 10.2.0.52 : USC-ISIF,ISIF : DEC-1090T : TOPS20 : TCP/TELNET,TCP/SMTP,TCP/FTP,TCP/FINGER,UDP/TFTP : The new entry will be: HOST : 10.2.0.52 : USC-ISIF.ARPA,USC-ISIF,ISIF : DEC-1090T : TOPS20 : TCP/TELNET,TCP/SMTP,TCP/FTP,TCP/FINGER,UDP/TFTP : For some hosts and programs this will cause no disruptions, but for others some problems may arise. For example, with over five hundred entries in the table, the addition of 500 names could exceed the space allocated to store the table in some programs. Another possible problem is that period (or dot, ".") is not now a legal character in host names, and some programs may not be able to parse these new names. An experimental domain-style name table has been available in parallel with the regular table for several months on the SRI-NIC machine, as DHOSTS.TXT. No new domains are being introduced during the changeover. There will be only one top-level domain to begin with, and that is ".ARPA". Other top-level domain names such as ".DDN", will be announced at a later date. The revised table simply appends a domain name to each of the official host names included in the ARPA domain. Thus, programs can be constructed to deal with domain style names in a general way, without requiring any special programming to add or delete the string ".ARPA" to or from host names. The introduction of new domains is tied to the provision of domain servers by those domains. As new domains meet the requirements and are authorized, the domain names will also be included in the NIC host table. Eventually, the Internet will become too complex and will change too rapidly to keep a master table of all the hosts. The future plan is to simplify the master table by reducing it to entries for the domain names only. By the time this happens, all normal translation of host names into addresses across domains should take place by consulting the appropriate domain servers. DDN subscribers (including MILNET subscribers) are not required to implement Domain Name servers or protocols until a DDN Domain Names schedule is published, which will not be prior to Oct 1984. MILNET subscribers who choose to participate in the DARPA Internet on a voluntary basis are free to do so, and may implement Domain Names according to the Internet Schedule. The NIC will continue to maintain a complete host table of DDN subscribers until the (as yet unscheduled) complete transition of DDN subscribers to the Domain Names approach takes place. Please see RFC 881 [2] and RFC 897 [3] for further discussion of the Internet schedule, and RFC 882 [4] and RFC 883 [5] for information on the design and implementation of the domain style name service. References: [1] Harrenstien, K., V. White, and E. Feinler, "Hostnames Server" RFC 811, Network Information Center, SRI International, March 1982. [2] Postel, J., "The Domain Names Plan and Schedule", RFC 881, USC Information Sciences Institute, November 1983. [3] Postel, J., "Domain Name System Implementation Schedule", RFC 897, USC Information Sciences Institute, February 1984. [4] Mockapetris, P., "Domain Names - Concepts and Facilities", RFC 882, USC Information Sciences Institute, November 1983. [5] Mockapetris, P., "Domain Names - Implementation and Specification", RFC 883, USC Information Sciences Institute, November 1983.