Integration of DNS Domain Names into Application Environments: Motivations and Considerations
draft-ietf-dnsop-integration-04
| Document | Type | Active Internet-Draft (dnsop WG) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Authors | Swapneel Sheth , Andrew Kaizer , Bryan Newbold , N. Johnson | ||
| Last updated | 2026-08-24 (Latest revision 2026-07-24) | ||
| Replaces | draft-sheth-dns-integration | ||
| RFC stream | Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) | ||
| Intended RFC status | (None) | ||
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| Additional resources | Mailing list discussion | ||
| Stream | WG state | In WG Last Call | |
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draft-ietf-dnsop-integration-04
Internet Engineering Task Force S. Sheth
Internet-Draft A. Kaizer
Intended status: Informational Verisign Labs
Expires: 25 January 2027 B. Newbold
Bluesky Social
N. Johnson
ENS Labs
24 July 2026
Integration of DNS Domain Names into Application Environments:
Motivations and Considerations
draft-ietf-dnsop-integration-04
Abstract
This document describes considerations when integrating a DNS domain
name into an application environment. Goals of this document include
minimizing conflicts between the global DNS and applications that
integrate with the global DNS, providing a consistent user experience
(unique identifier across environments), and avoiding impacts to the
security, stability, and resiliency of the global DNS. While all
sources of potential concern cannot be enumerated in one document,
accounting for at least the considerations discussed here should
improve the security posture of both the global DNS and integrating
applications.
Status of This Memo
This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the
provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.
Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering
Task Force (IETF). Note that other groups may also distribute
working documents as Internet-Drafts. The list of current Internet-
Drafts is at https://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/current/.
Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months
and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any
time. It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference
material or to cite them other than as "work in progress."
This Internet-Draft will expire on 25 January 2027.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (c) 2026 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
document authors. All rights reserved.
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This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
Provisions Relating to IETF Documents (https://trustee.ietf.org/
license-info) in effect on the date of publication of this document.
Please review these documents carefully, as they describe your rights
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provided without warranty as described in the Revised BSD License.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.1. Intended Audience . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2. Terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
3. Considerations for a DNS Integration . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
3.1. Domain Name Lifecycle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
3.2. Domain Control Validation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
3.3. Completeness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
3.4. Synchronization Mechanisms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
3.5. DNS Protocol Evolution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
3.6. Variety of DNS Management User Interfaces . . . . . . . . 6
3.7. DNS Record Type Support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
4. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
5. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
6. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Appendix A. Integration Lessons Learned . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
A.1. ATP and Bluesky . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
A.2. Ethereum Name Service . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Appendix B. Change Log . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
1. Introduction
This document describes considerations when integrating a DNS domain
name into an application environment. While the considerations may
apply to other systems that use a domain-name based syntax, this
document is targeted at domain names from the "global DNS" as defined
in [RFC2826] and [RFC9499], i.e., the DNS namespace as managed and
governed by ICANN's multistakeholder model. The rest of this
document proceeds under this framing.
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Domain names from the global DNS have long been used as identifiers
in applications. In the early days, domain names were associated
with TELNET hosts, File Transfer Protocol (FTP) servers, and email
services. Later, domain names were adopted for web browsing. More
recently, blockchain applications, decentralized protocols, and
social media platforms have emerged as new use cases for domain
names. How a domain name is enabled for use as an identifier in each
of these applications is known as a DNS integration.
Given the ever-increasing number of application environments using or
proposing their own DNS integrations, there is a need to raise
awareness about considerations that such applications should account
for in order to provide a "responsible" DNS integration. A
responsible DNS integration can be defined as one that allows a
domain name to be used within an application environment in a way
that provides a consistent user experience (unique identifier across
environments) and avoids impacting the security, stability, and
resiliency of the global DNS.
In support of the development of responsible DNS integrations, this
document describes some considerations that DNS integrations should
account for. While all sources of potential concern cannot be
enumerated in one document, accounting for at least the
considerations discussed here should improve the security posture of
applications as they integrate with the global DNS.
1.1. Intended Audience
This document is targeted at developers of applications that provide
or are considering an integration with the global DNS, e.g., to use
domain names as an identifier in their application. Applications
might be motivated to integrate with the global DNS for various
reasons: global consistency, universal acceptance, human-readable
identifiers, stability, flexibility, verifiability, and to utilize
the reputation registrants may have already developed around their
use of a domain name.
This document does not prescribe specific mechanisms about how to
perform a DNS integration, but rather provides considerations that
apply broadly to DNS integrations.
Applications may find value in using this document as a checklist
that, if ensuring each consideration is accounted for, can decrease
outcomes that could negatively impact the application and the global
DNS.
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2. Terminology
This document uses the terminology from [RFC9499] as a baseline.
Additional terms applicable to DNS integrations are provided here in
alphabetical order:
* Application environment: An application, platform, or protocol
* DNS integration: How a domain name is enabled for use as an
identifier in an application environment
* Responsible DNS integration: Takes into account qualities and
considerations that provide a consistent user experience and
avoids impacting the security, stability, and resiliency of the
global DNS
* Synchronization: The property that a domain name integrated into
an application environment aligns with its state in the global DNS
3. Considerations for a DNS Integration
This section provides considerations that a DNS integration should
account for in their specification design. Failure to account for
such considerations may result in user confusion, name collisions
between an application and the global DNS, or other security related
concerns. The exact risks depend on the context and design of the
integration and are out of scope for this document.
While each integration may have unique considerations, Appendix A
looks at how the considerations listed here relate to two different
protocols: Authenticated Transfer Protocol (ATP) and Ethereum Name
Service. Reviewing that may help contextualize how other DNS
integrations are approaching these topics.
3.1. Domain Name Lifecycle
A DNS integration should account for domain name lifecycle events.
Some examples of lifecycle events include expiration, change in
DNSSEC status, or technical changes that affect the integration such
as the removal of an expected resource record. Such lifecycle events
might result in a change of control or status of the domain name
compared to when it was originally integrated that could require one
of the parties involved in the DNS integration to take some action to
stay synchronized with the state of the domain name in the global
DNS.
Failure to account for the domain name lifecycle might result in a
DNS integration allowing users other than the current registrant of
the domain name to control the domain name in the integration. This
could lead to confusion and security risks which may break end user
trust.
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3.2. Domain Control Validation
A DNS integration should implement validation checks to ensure only
the DNS registrant or an authorized party associated with the domain
name can establish the integration. Some examples of domain control
validation include storing data in DNS
[I-D.ietf-dnsop-domain-verification-techniques] or storing evidence
on a server referenced by a domain name, e.g., at a well-known
endpoint as described in [RFC8615].
Failure to perform domain control validation results in the same
challenges as described in Section 3.1.
3.3. Completeness
A DNS integration should allow any domain name that meets the
integration's technical criteria to be integrated. Not doing so
excludes domain names from participation for non-technical reasons,
which could lead to registrant confusion if they are not able to
associate their domain name.
DNS integrations should be aware that the list of valid global DNS
TLDs can change, so should not hard code a list of accepted TLDs. If
applications want a list of currently valid TLDs, they can use a
routinely updated list such as that provided by IANA [IANA-TLD].
Failure to account for new TLDs may lead to inadvertent exclusion
which could also lead to registrant and user confusion.
When interacting with non-technical users, applications should
present and accept domain names in Unicode "u-label" format
[RFC5890]. In the DNS wire format, applications should only use
domain names that conform to the "Preferred Name Syntax" [RFC1034] or
the Attrleaf syntax [RFC8553]. Applications should store and display
names only in fully-qualified form without the final ".", unless they
also require access to network-local search domains [RFC3397].
Displaying, normalizing, comparing, encoding, and decoding of domain
names requires special processing, and cannot rely on generic string
operations alone. In the user interface, applications should take
care to prevent potential attacks related to visually similar
characters as described in Section 4.4 of [RFC5890]. Other security
risks include improper use of case-sensitive comparison and failure
to reject names whose labels contain non-preferred characters.
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3.4. Synchronization Mechanisms
A DNS integration should provide documented mechanisms to handle
cases where an integrated domain name is no longer synchronized,
e.g., because a lifecycle event occurred as discussed in Section 3.1.
Documented mechanisms provide clarity to users about what they need
to do to maintain an integration while also ensuring the application
providing an integration is taking steps to ensure alignment with the
global DNS.
A designer of a DNS integration should also be cognizant that
executing these mechanisms too frequently may result in rate
limiting. This may also occur if multiple integrated domain names
share the same infrastructure which increases the potential that rate
limits would be triggered. Consequently, a DNS integration should
account for this potential in their mechanisms.
Additionally, domain names may be exposed to temporary interruptions
such as system downtime, DNS hijacking, or web server compromise.
Such events may unexpectedly change who can utilize the domain name
or impact the ability of a DNS integration from checking the status
of the domain name. DNS integrations should consider how to handle
and recover from such issues, including allowing a registrant to re-
integrate the domain name.
3.5. DNS Protocol Evolution
A designer of a DNS integration should be aware that the DNS protocol
will evolve over time and such evolutions might impact their DNS
integration. For example, DNSSEC algorithms have changed over time
as new algorithms are added, and existing algorithms are deprecated.
Failure to account for such changes might pose a security risk, lead
to user confusion, or cause a lack of interoperability with the
current state of the global DNS.
3.6. Variety of DNS Management User Interfaces
A DNS integration might request a user follow certain actions to
enable the integration. For example, a TXT record might need to be
set or DNSSEC might need to be configured. However, each DNS
management user interface might expose how to achieve the required
actions in different ways. This introduces friction to the
integration process as the user might only know what they need to do
-- e.g., add a TXT record -- but not necessarily how to do it.
Integrations can provide advice for how to perform such actions for
some interfaces, but it is not feasible to do so for all.
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3.7. DNS Record Type Support
A DNS integration might utilize record types that are not widely
supported at DNS providers. For example, new DNS record types will
take time to be rolled out to DNS providers or a DNS provider might
opt not to support a particular record type. To avoid such
challenges, a DNS integration should provide alternatives, such as a
different record type that is expected to be more broadly deployed to
ensure users can participate.
4. IANA Considerations
This document has no IANA actions.
5. Security Considerations
This document does not introduce new protocol artifacts with security
considerations, however, DNS integrations should account for general
DNS related issues and resource capacity considerations.
Resource capacity in a DNS integration impacts who is capable of
performing the necessary steps to participate in or validate the
integration. For example, if an integration requires DNSSEC then
some clients might not be able to perform the necessary cryptographic
operations on their own such as IoT devices or human users performing
manual validation. DNS integrations should be cognizant of this
potential gap in capabilities and how it could impact their DNS
integration.
Minimizing conflicts between the global DNS and applications that
integrate with the global DNS is one of the goals of this document.
While all sources of potential conflict cannot be enumerated, this
effort should improve the security posture of both the global DNS and
integrating applications through highlighting considerations to
account for when providing a DNS integration.
6. Informative References
[ENS-NIC] Verisign, "Ethereum Name Service (ENS) Root Change Issue",
12 April 2019, <https://www.verisign.com/assets/labs/ens-
root-change-issues-5.2020.pdf>.
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[I-D.ietf-dnsop-domain-verification-techniques]
Sahib, S. K., Huque, S., Wouters, P., and E. Nygren,
"Domain Control Validation using DNS", Work in Progress,
Internet-Draft, draft-ietf-dnsop-domain-verification-
techniques-04, 3 March 2024,
<https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-ietf-dnsop-
domain-verification-techniques-04>.
[IANA-TLD] IANA, "IANA List of TLDs", 7 April 2026,
<https://data.iana.org/TLD/tlds-alpha-by-domain.txt>.
[RFC1034] Mockapetris, P., "Domain names - concepts and facilities",
STD 13, RFC 1034, DOI 10.17487/RFC1034, November 1987,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc1034>.
[RFC2826] IAB, "IAB Technical Comment on the Unique DNS Root",
RFC 2826, DOI 10.17487/RFC2826, May 2000,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2826>.
[RFC3397] Aboba, B. and S. Cheshire, "Dynamic Host Configuration
Protocol (DHCP) Domain Search Option", RFC 3397,
DOI 10.17487/RFC3397, November 2002,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3397>.
[RFC5890] Klensin, J., "Internationalized Domain Names for
Applications (IDNA): Definitions and Document Framework",
RFC 5890, DOI 10.17487/RFC5890, August 2010,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5890>.
[RFC8553] Crocker, D., "DNS Attrleaf Changes: Fixing Specifications
That Use Underscored Node Names", BCP 222, RFC 8553,
DOI 10.17487/RFC8553, March 2019,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8553>.
[RFC8615] Nottingham, M., "Well-Known Uniform Resource Identifiers
(URIs)", RFC 8615, DOI 10.17487/RFC8615, May 2019,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8615>.
[RFC9499] Hoffman, P. and K. Fujiwara, "DNS Terminology", BCP 219,
RFC 9499, DOI 10.17487/RFC9499, March 2024,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc9499>.
Appendix A. Integration Lessons Learned
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A.1. ATP and Bluesky
Bluesky is a social media application built on the Authenticated
Transfer Protocol (ATP). In ATP, the Decentralized Identifier (DID)
framework is used for persistent account identifiers. Most DIDs are
not human readable, so every account is also associated with a domain
name, referred to as a "handle". Handles are for display only: they
are not used in persistent references (URIs), and can change any time
without breaking social graph connections. The handle/DID
relationship must be verified bi-directionally. The handle-to-DID
direction can be verified using either DNS TXT records or an HTTPS
well-known endpoint, both of which align with the guidance in
Section 3.2. ATP handles, as used in Bluesky, are a DNS Integration.
DNS was chosen as the handle namespace for reasons of efficiency,
cost effectiveness, and technical maturity - considerations which
overlap with those in Section 1.1.
Registering a new handle needed to be fast (second-level latency),
zero-cost, and reliable (near-zero downtime). DNS meets all of these
requirements. The ATP network is design to accommodate billions of
accounts, and DNS has been shown to scale to hundreds of millions of
registered domains without significant infrastructure burden.
Service providers can use sub-domains as handles and allocate them in
large numbers efficiently and at low marginal cost.
Bluesky is a small company developing a novel network protocol. DNS
is a mature and broadly adopted technology. Developers are already
familiar with DNS, and DNS works with existing software and
infrastructure. The DNS system is financially sustainable with an
international multi-stakeholder governance structure, which means
developers can build on it with confidence.
DNS is global, distributed, and eventually consistent which are
important properties for a distributed network. As a result,
independent service providers and software clients should eventually
see the same view of the domain system, which means that end users
should have a coherent experience regardless of provider or client.
Domain names are well established in society. Domain names are
conceptually familiar and recognizable to most network users.
Policies, legal precedent, and dispute resolution procedures are
mature across many jurisdictions. These help address the perennial
challenges of impersonation and trademark disputes. In particular,
many culturally relevant institutions and individuals already have
domain names with an established reputation. The flexibility of DNS
allows those existing domains to be reused in a new context.
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To maximize these benefits, it is important that handle validation is
consistent and reproducible by any party. Any valid domain name
(hostname) can be used as a handle and that all handles are valid
globally resolvable domain names (aligning with Section 3.3). This
ensures that every network service can resolve any handle in the
network, without requiring special DNS software. Use of the TXT
record type has broad support in both client software and in DNS
management interfaces (though the diversity of such interfaces can be
a user documentation challenge, as discussed in Section 3.6).
Limited use of caching helps reduce breakage due to short network
service downtimes, while still ensuring that handle validity lifetime
is tied to domain registration lifetime (as described in Sections 3.1
and 3.4). In other words, changes in domain control are reflected in
changes on handle validity within a reasonable time window, reducing
the chance of misattribution. The ATP handle specification text
largely defers to IETF DNS standards, with the goal of maintaining
compatibility as norms and best practices evolve over time (aligning
with Section 3.5).
A.2. Ethereum Name Service
ENS integrates DNS names to provide a unified namespace across
blockchain and traditional applications. By incorporating existing
DNS names, ENS lets people reuse familiar, already-reputable
identifiers across both environments - a motivation that overlaps
with several in Section 1.1, including human-readable identifiers,
universal acceptance, and reuse of the reputation a registrant has
already established. Two integration paths exist: an on-chain DNSSEC
import, in which a registrant submits a DNSSEC proof of a TXT record
under their name to claim the equivalent ENS name, and a TLD-operator
opt-in, in which the operator of a TLD enables the entire TLD within
ENS. Both are DNS integrations in the sense of this document.
Domain control validation relies exclusively on DNSSEC. To establish
or update an integration, a party submits the DNSSEC chain of trust
for a TXT record under the name; the chain is verified on-chain, and
the record's contents bind the name to an Ethereum address. This
stores control evidence in DNS, aligning with the guidance in
Section 3.2. ENS does not currently offer a non-DNSSEC validation
path such as an HTTPS well-known endpoint, so the integration's reach
is limited to names whose zones are DNSSEC-signed.
Because any party can submit a newer DNSSEC proof, and a newer proof
supersedes an older one, the on-chain state can be re-synchronized
with the global DNS by anyone at any time (aligning with Sections 3.1
and 3.4). When control of a name changes, a new registrant re-
establishes the integration by submitting a proof of their own
record. One limitation shapes this behavior: ENS does not currently
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support NSEC (negative) proofs, so the non-existence or removal of a
record cannot be proven on-chain. A stale positive claim therefore
persists until a newer positive proof replaces it, rather than being
revoked when the underlying record is deleted or the name lapses.
Implementers should be aware that synchronization is driven by
submission of newer positive proofs rather than by detection of
removal.
ENS does not hard-code a list of accepted TLDs: any TLD present in
the DNS root can be imported with a valid DNSSEC proof, consistent
with Section 3.3's caution against fixed TLD lists. The registrable
boundary is determined by an extensible on-chain mechanism that can
be upgraded - for example, to recognize multi-label public suffixes
such as second-level ccTLD registries - rather than by a hard-coded
assumption. Completeness is not yet total, however: although ENS
supports Unicode names generally, on-chain decoding of Punycode
(A-labels) is unavailable, so IDNA names cannot presently be
imported. This is a known gap of the kind Section 3.3 warns about,
where non-ASCII names may be inadvertently excluded.
The primary historical challenges have revolved around reliably
identifying public suffixes and identifying the authorized party for
a name. Early versions of the integration made unfounded assumptions
- most notably treating ownership of a nic.tld-form domain as
evidence of authority over the corresponding TLD - an invalid
control-validation heuristic of the kind Section 3.2 is intended to
prevent [ENS-NIC]. TLD-operator integrations are now gated by manual
verification of the operator rather than by such automated inference.
This draft should help future implementers avoid similar pitfalls.
The DNSSEC dependency also intersects with record and interface
support. While the TXT record itself is broadly supported, enabling
DNSSEC is not offered by every registrar and is exposed
inconsistently across DNS management interfaces, introducing the kind
of friction described in Sections 3.6 and 3.7. Unlike integrations
that can fall back to a more widely deployed record type, ENS has no
viable non-DNSSEC alternative, so names without DNSSEC remain
excluded. Finally, because on-chain verification supports a fixed
set of DNSSEC algorithms, ENS must track DNS protocol evolution
directly: as algorithms proceed through their lifecycle, support for
them must be added to or removed from the on-chain verifier (aligning
with Section 3.5).
Appendix B. Change Log
00: Initial draft of the document as adopted by DNSOP
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01: Incorporating initial feedback from call for adoption and
early ARTART/SECDIR reviews
02: Streamlined considerations, revised introduction based on
feedback from DNSDIR and mailing list comments
03: Incorporating appendix updates to refer to considerations
section
04: Incorporating updated completeness text
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to acknowledge the following individuals for
their contributions to this document: TBD.
Authors' Addresses
S. Sheth
Verisign Labs
12061 Bluemont Way
Reston
Email: ssheth@verisign.com
URI: https://www.verisignlabs.com/
A. Kaizer
Verisign Labs
12061 Bluemont Way
Reston
Email: akaizer@verisign.com
URI: https://www.verisignlabs.com/
B. Newbold
Bluesky Social
Email: bryan@blueskyweb.xyz
URI: https://bsky.social/about
N. Johnson
ENS Labs
Email: nick@ens.domains
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