Subject: WG Review: Provisioning Registry Protocol (provreg)

From: The IESG <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 13:53:43 -0500

A new IETF working group has been proposed in the Applications Area.
The IESG has not made any determination as yet. 

The following Description was submitted, and is provided for
informational purposes only:

Provisioning Registry Protocol (provreg)
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 Current Status: Proposed Working Group

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Description of Working Group:
 
Administration of Domain Name Service (DNS) registration increasingly
distinguishes between the operation of a "back-end" registry data base
service for registrations, versus "front-end" support services by
registrars who interact with registrants and with the registry.  
Especially for various Top-Level Domains, the desire is to permit 
multiple registrars to share access to the database.  Conversely, there 
is a desire to allow a registrar to access multiple registries via the 
same protocol, even if the registries differ in operational models.

This working group will develop a specification of the requirements and
limitations for a protocol that enables a registrar to access multiple
registries and will develop a  protocol that satisfies those 
requirements. The protocol will permit interaction between a
registrar's own application and registry applications.

The initial specification will allow multiple registrars to register 
and maintain domain names within multiple Top Level Domains (TLDs). The
specification should be flexible enough to support the different 
operational models of registries.  The specification should allow 
extension to support other registration data, such as address 
allocation and contact information. The working group will use as input 
the "Generic Registry-Registrar Protocol Requirements"  
(draft-hollenbeck-grrp-reqs-nn) and the Extensible Provisioning
Protocol presentation, documented in (draft-hollenbeck-epp-nn).

The group will consider support for multiple operational choices, such 
as for transport and security; it will create no new transport or 
security protocols.  The group may consider use of the new protocol for 
diverse registration and update scenarios, in order to understand 
limitations and possible extensions that are appropriate.  Specification 
for user interface access, such as by a web front end, is beyond the 
scope of this working group.

Documentation from the working group will:

* Specify the objects exchanged between the registry repository 
and registrars, the relationships among the objects, and the protocol 
for exchanging objects between a registrar and the registry; at a 
minimum the objects will include:  domain name, IP address, and contact 
details for registrants

* Describe appropriate mechanisms for security during registrar access

* List useful examples of registrar access transactions