Secondary DNS Service for ccTLD Operators

The RIPE NCC offers a best-effort secondary name service to the other Regional Internet Registries (RIRs) and some country code top-level domain (ccTLD) operators who are in the start-up phase of their operations. This document describes the criteria used to evaluate the eligibility of ccTLD operators to obtain secondary name services from the RIPE NCC. Other types of DNS service by the RIPE NCC, for example ENUM, are not in the scope of this document.

There is no associated cost to the zone operators for receiving secondary services from the RIPE NCC. Appendix 1 lists the currently supported zones at the time of writing this document.

In 2014, the RIPE community provided the RIPE NCC with a set of guidelines regarding the requirements and policies for providing ccTLD services. These guidelines are recorded in this RIPE Document and direct the operational decisions of the RIPE NCC when adding or terminating secondary services to operators.

DNS Secondary Service Guiding Principles

1. The RIPE NCC should only provide secondary DNS for ISO3166 ccTLDs and IDN ccTLDs.
2. The RIPE NCC should exchange letters with ccTLD operators, to be renewed periodically.
3. The agreement to provide secondary DNS will have a finite lifetime, to be reviewed along with the renewal letter.
4. Eligibility criteria to be used by the RIPE NCC:
   
   • Size of zone
     If the number of delegations in the zone, or in any of its public child zones, exceeds 10,000, the operator of the zone is considered to be no longer in the start-up phase of their operations.
   • Number and diversity of other name servers
     If there is sufficient diversity and there are more than three other secondary name servers for the zone already, the operator of the zone is considered to be no longer in the start-up phase of their operations.
   • Usage of commercial DNS/name service
     If the zone operator has reached a state of operations in which they are using secondary name services from a commercial service provider, the operator of the zone is considered to be no longer in the start-up phase of their operations.
5. For ccTLD operators who already receive secondary DNS services from the RIPE NCC, the eligibility criteria will be evaluated no earlier than May 2016. A grace period of at least one year will be applied for a transition to another provider, should the criteria no longer be met.
6. Additions and removals will be reported to the DNS Working Group.

Appendix 1 – List of ccTLDs for which RIPE NCC provides secondary services (dated 20 October 2015)