ICANN New gTLD Application


The Applicant intends to organize the registry operation for the .MUTUELLE gTLD in such a manner that it will minimize the likelihood of having multiple applications or registration requests for a particular domain name. 
According to the Applicant, this can be achieved in any of the following ways, which likely needs to be further refined following ICANN’s award and delegation of the .MUTUELLE gTLD to The Applicant:

i.	From the Applicant’s perspective, .MUTUELLE may bring a high degree of recognition and specialization to the currently existing name space. Where in most cases the specific connotation that has been initially given to the gTLDs (or even ccTLDs) has disappeared, the .MUTUELLE top-level domain is currently intended to be unambiguous as regards: 

a.	the identity of the The Applicant as the Registry Operator, and its affiliation with the TLD;
b.	its affiliations with its members and stakeholders, being the more than 600 mutual organizations in France, and its future members;
c.	the source of the content and services offered under the .MUTUELLE by the Applicant and its stakeholders; and
d.	in term, and at the discretion of the affiliation of The Applicant, the affiliation between the Registry Operator and any third party other than the stakeholders that is authorized by the Applicant to register and⁄or use one or more domain name registrations in the .MUTUELLE TLD.

ii.	As mentioned in the vision and mission statement above, the key reasons why Applicant is applying for .MUTUELLE include but are not limited to:

a.	Take the opportunity presented by ICANN’s New gTLD Program in order to operate the generic .MUTUELLE extension at the top-level of the DNS’ hierarchy, which has the potential to present significant marketing and branding advantages for the Applicant, as well as an innovative platform for supporting its various stakeholders;

b.	Provide for an unambiguous, safe and secure Internet environment, under the direct control of the Applicant; and

c.	Implement measures – in the near or distant future and when more adequate tools and techniques become available – to mitigate and even avoid abuse, phishing, and even piracy in the .MUTUELLE TLD, which purports to be a safe haven for information, products and services offered by the Applicant and its stakeholders.

iii.	The Applicant intends to implement the following policies and procedures with respect to the registration of domain names in the .MUTUELLE top-level domain:

(a)	reservation and registration of domain names in the name of The Applicant and its stakeholders. It is likely that this will be the scenario that the Applicant will put in place during the first months or even years of operation of the .MUTUELLE gTLD. These names may include, but are not limited to:
i.	descriptive names, referring to the actual day-to-day activities of the Applicant or its stakeholders;
ii.	descriptive names, referring to the internal departments of the Applicant;
iii.	descriptive or brand names, referring to its stakeholders;
iv.	etc.

(b)	launch of the TLD: if and when implemented by the Applicant, this is likely going to be a gradual process, whereby selected third parties that meet certain criteria, which the Applicant will be entitled to set at its own discretion, may register domain names in the .MUTUELLE gTLD. These processes may include the following:

i.	Sunrise: allow organizations and entities that meet the eligibility requirements determined by the Applicant at that point in time to choose and, where allowed by the Applicant, to register the domain names that are identical to their trademarks, business identifiers and company names. By way of example: eligible parties could include members of the Applicant, and their corresponding .MUTUELLE domain names would then include their product or service brands, their company name, etc.;

ii.	Land rush and general availability: other available domain names may be registered organizations and entities that meet the eligibility requirements in force at that point in time to choose the domain names in accordance with the applicable terms and conditions, determined at the sole discretion of the Applicant. 
In any case, the Applicant reserves the right to impose additional and other restrictions from time to time at its sole discretion, in particular as regards the use that is being made of domain names registered in .MUTUELLE. 

iv.	Given the fact that the Applicant is an organization that is established in France, it is subject to both national and European privacy and data protection rules and practices. In particular, given the fact that the French data protection authorities have issued strict guidelines, The Applicant will at all times be obliged to implement these policies, and this prior to and during the operation of the .MUTUELLE gTLD.

v.	Although a limited number of first use cases for the .MUTUELLE gTLD have been considered by the Applicant, no detailed plans on when and how it will develop the new .MUTUELLE channel have been presented yet, nor has it been determinged what will be the role of and services that will be provided to and by the Applicant and its stakeholders over such platform. However, the Applicant has different ways in order to make existing and future customers, visitors and stakeholders aware of the (gradual) development of a new online environment under the .MUTUELLE TLD, including but not limited to:

a.	Direct and indirect marketing and branding initiatives;
b.	By way of brochures, posters and advertisements in newspapers, magazines, specialized press, etc.;
c.	Having Internet traffic to the websites of the Applicant and its stakeholders resolving in .MUTUELLE domain names, hereby actively promiting this new space, provide relevant content with respect to the activities, products and services of the Applicant and its stakeholders, which all builds awareness with Internet users that the .MUTUELLE gTLD exists;
d.	etc.


In line with The Applicant’s mission and purpose for the .MUTUELLE gTLD, it is first and foremost important for the Applicant to safeguard and protect the generic .MUTUELLE extension at the top level of the DNS’ hierarchy. Such protection does not only extend to the actual registration, delegation and use of the TLD, but also to the domain names that are registered therein, and how these domain names are used.

Considering the fact that the actual award and delegation of the .MUTUELLE gTLD to the Applicant is subject to the successful evaluation of our application, the Applicant has to date only performed a high-level analysis of: 

•	the types of domain names that will be registered;
•	who will be entitled to select which domain names will be registered
•	who will be entitled to register such domain names;
•	who will be entitled to use such domain names, and;
•	which types of use will be allowed or recommended.

As we believe that the development and implementation of one or more business cases could likely take a couple of months or even years, we have only focused on a number of high-level characteristics of our plans in relation to the operation of the .MUTUELLE gTLD, as described above.

By all means, it is in The Applicant’s self-interest to, on the one hand, make the most of this initiative, promote its own interests together with those of its stakeholders.

In this context, The Applicant will devise policies that encompass and comprise the following features:

At least during the initial months or even years following the delegation of the .MUTUELLE gTLD to The Applicant, this extension is likely going to be exclusively reserved for the Applicant and its current and future members.

Therefore, parties who are not part of the Applicant’s organization will, at least in a first stage following the delegation of the .MUTUELLE gTLD, not be entitled to register domain names in this extension. 

The Applicant believes this to be in line with two of the main elements in its vision and mission statement, namely:

•	protecting and safeguarding the .MUTUELLE gTLD, by keeping full control over the entire operation of the .MUTUELLE registry and most if not all domain names registered therein; and

•	providing guarantees to Internet users that when they are using domain name registrations in .MUTUELLE, that they are in fact interacting with the Appicant or its authorized members ⁄ stakeholders.

Consequently, there will be no (social) costs for non-eligible (third) parties, given the fact that they will be unable to register domain names in the .MUTUELLE gTLD in the first place.

However, even if only the Applicant and its stakeholders will be entitled to register domain names, this does not exclude the hypothesis that disputes may arise with one or more third parties as regards domain names that are registered in the .MUTUELLE gTLD.

In order to avoid these risks, the Applicant intends to implement the following policies and processes: 

First, the domain names to be registered by the Applicant and its stakeholders could relate to the following:

•	registered trademarks of the Applicant and⁄or its stakeholders;
•	names of departments within the Applicant; 
•	names of activities, charities, etc. sponsored or organized by the Applicant or its stakeholders;
•	etc.

Furthermore, the Applicant envisages that a fair number of generic words that are directly or indirectly related to the day-to-day activities and operations of the Applicant and its stakeholders will be registered.

As regards the names referred to in Specification 5 to the template Registry Operator Agreement, the Applicant will follow the processes and procedures established by ICANN and the Governmental Advisory Committee.

If the Applicant would determine, at its sole discretion, that it will gradually allow other categories registrants to register domain names in the .MUTUELLE gTLD in their own name, the Applicant will devise policies to that effect.

However, the Applicant will at all times be entitled to restrict, limit or expand:

•	the category or categories of stakeholders who will be entitled to register one or more domain names in the .MUTUELLE gTLD, including their criteria for qualification;
•	the choice of domain name(s) registered in the .MUTUELLE gTLD by and per such eligible stakeholder (category);
•	the use made by an and per eligible stakeholder of a domain name registered in the .MUTUELLE gTLD;
•	the transfer of domain names registered in .MUTUELLE;
•	etc.

The Applicant shall reserve the right to subject the registration or use of a domain name to internal approval processes and procedures, at each and every step of the domain name life cycle.

Given the fact that the Applicant may release such available domain names post launch in a highly controlled manner, this also reduces the likelihood that two or more applicants qualify for the registration of the same domain name in the .MUTUELLE top-level domain.

As a method of last resort, and subject to the actual domain name registration policy adopted by the Applicant ⁄ Registry Operator and in force at the time of registration, domain names will be allocated on a first-come, first-served basis.

In any event, the Applicant reserves the right to change or restrict any policies, procedures and practices at any point in time if it is of the opinion that there would be a risk that the reputation of the TLD, the Applicant or its stakeholders would be harmed.

If and when the Applicant intends to make the .MUTUELLE top-level domain available to qualifying third party domain name registrants, it will do so at an acceptable cost to them. Also, the Applicant reserves the right to bundle certain products and services offered now or in the future with the registration of domain names in the .MUTUELLE gTLD. Furthermore, the Applicant may offer additional services that intend to drive Internet traffic from URLs operated by the Applicant towards domain names registered, controlled, and⁄or operated by such third parties.

So, in brief:

1.	The Applicant ⁄ Registry Operator may reserve, delegate and use a potentially large number of domain names that are directly or indirectly relevant to Applicant’s business in its own name. Since some of these domain names could be of a descriptive nature, the chances for qualifying ⁄ eligible applicants ⁄ registrants to register such domain names after the launch will be limited;

2.	The Registry Operator shall be entitled at all times to release available domain names post launch in a highly controlled manner, which also reduces the likelihood that two or more applicants qualify for the registration of the same domain name in the .MUTUELLE top-level domain;

3.	As a method of last resort, and subject to the actual domain name registration policy adopted by the Registry Operator and in force at the time of registration, domain names will be allocated on a first-come, first-served basis, however always taking into account the rights and legitimate interests of third parties, including but not limited to trademark rights;

4.	The Applicant may intend to make the .MUTUELLE top-level domain available to qualifying ⁄ eligible domain name registrants at an acceptable cost to them, to be determined if and when the Applicant would decide at its own discretion to allow third parties to register domain names. Furthermore, the Applicant may decide to bundle such domain name registrations with additional added-value products and services generally offered by the Applicant in the course of its ordinary activities;

5.	If the Applicant ⁄ Registry Operator will be required to increase the fees for the registration of domain names, such increases will keep pace with comparable market rates for such domain name registrations. However, the Registry Operator shall at all times be entitled to bundle the registration of domain names with other products or services offered by or on behalf of the Applicant at a fee to be set by the Registry Operator.

Table of Contents :

1 - Receipt of data from registrars concerning registration of domain names and nameservers : Shared Registration System (SRS)
2 - Operation of the Registry zone servers
3 - Provision to registrars of status information relating to the zone servers for the TLD
3.1 - Standard DNS related status information
3.2 - Emergency DNS related status information
4 - Dissemination of TLD zone files.
4.1 - Incremental updates every 10 minutes
4.2 - Complete publication of the zone
4.3 - Propagation mechanism
4.4 - Zone File Access⁄Distribution
5 - Dissemination of contact or other information concerning domain name registrations (Whois service)
6 - Internationalized Domain Names
7 - DNS Security Extensions (DNSSEC)
7.1 - Registrar Services
7.2 - Signing Activity
8 - Other relevant services
8.1 - Security and Redundancy
8.2 - Consensus Policy Compliance

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1 - Receipt of data from registrars concerning registration of domain names and nameservers : Shared Registration System (SRS)

Operated by AFNIC, the .MUTUELLE TLD will adapt a domain shared registration system used in production by AFNIC to operate .fr zone and which has been fully functional for the past 15 years. This Extensible Provisioning Protocol (EPP) based Shared Registration System (SRS) has exhibited the ability to meet stringent SLAs as well as to scale from the operational management of an initial thousands of domain names to over 2 million in late 2011.

The SRS exists to interact with the Registrar’s systems, who are responsible for the provisioning of a registrant’s domain name with the .MUTUELLE TLD registry. Registrars interact with the registry through two primary mechanisms :
* Communication machine to machine via an EPP client (Registrar) to an EPP Server API (Registry).
* A Web Portal Interface that expresses the functionality of the EPP API. The Web Portal also provides access to user configuration and other back-office functions such as report and invoice retrieval.

SRS functionality includes standard functions and features such as :

* Domain Registration : The AFNIC SRS supports synchronous registrations (creations) of domain names through the EPP domain create command. It supports updates of associative status, DNS and DNSSEC delegation information and EPP contact objects with a domain and the deletion of existing domains. This allows Registrars to create domain registrations, modify them and ultimately delete them.

* Domain Renewal : The AFNIC SRS allows registrars to renew sponsored domains using the EPP renew command. The SRS automatically renews domain names upon expiry.

* Transfer : The AFNIC SRS supports the transfer of a given domain between two Registrars in a secure fashion by requiring two party confirmations and the exchange of a token (the EPP authinfo code) associated with the domain.

* Contact Objects : The AFNIC SRS supports the creation, update, association to domain objects, and deletion of EPP contact objects. This functionality supports the required information to supply contact data displayed in Registration Data Directory Services (RDDS) (Whois) systems.

* Hosts : A subordinate object of the domain object in an EPP based SRS, internal hosts are supported in the AFNIC SRS. These hosts cannot be removed when other 2nd level domains within the .MUTUELLE TLD zone are delegated to these nameservers. Delegation must be removed prior to the removal of the child hosts and a parent domain name to a given host in turn cannot be removed prior to the deletion of the related child host.

* Redemption Grace Period (RGP) & Restoring deleted domain name registrations : AFNIC SRS supports the RGP for the purpose of retrieving erroneously deleted domain names prior to being made available again for public registration.

Other features include :

* Additional EPP commands in order to manage and update both domain and contact objects in the registry which are EPP info, check, delete and update commands.

* An inline billing system which is synchronised with the SRS. Actions can be taken daily from simple alerts to concrete account blocking.

* Grace Periods and Refunds : the AFNIC SRS will support standard grace periods such as Add, Renew, Autorenew, Transfer and RGP grace periods. Refunds issued will reflect actual values deducted from registrar’s balance in consideration of any rebates issued conjunctively or separately for the relevant domain registration.

* The capacity to deal with reserved domain name registration. Reserved names are stored in a specific back office tool. Specific authorisations codes can be delivered out of band by support team to “unlock” creation of these reserved names. SRS uses standard EPP auth_info field in conformity with EPP RFCs to prevent or allow the registration of the domain name.

[see attached diagram Q23_1_authorisation_code_workflow.pdf]
Diagram : Reserved names unlock
Description : This diagram illustrates process to unlock registration of reserved names. An out of band email process is used to deliver a specific authorisation_code, that can be used in EPP or through the web interface to register the domain name.

SRS EPP functions are compatible with the following list of RFCs :
RFCs 5910, 5730, 5731, 5732, 5733 and 5734. Since AFNIC will implement the Registry Grace Period (RGP), it will comply with RFC 3915 and the successors of the aforementioned RFCs.

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2 - Operation of the Registry zone servers

The DNS resolution service is a core business of the Registry Operator. It is an essential function that must be provided with a very high level of service quality to satisfy queries concerning a zone 100% of the time with a response time as short as possible.

As the registry back-end service provider for the .MUTUELLE TLD, AFNIC has a set of sites, distributed internationally, to answer these queries. The high availability of responses is ensured by the number of servers that host the zone information; the response time is in turn linked to the geographical location of the servers (as near as possible to the exchange points and as a result to users).

To ensure a very high level of availability of information and a response time as short as possible to a DNS query for a given zone, AFNIC has chosen to deploy its own DNS architecture, operated by our teams, while also relying on a set of internationally recognized service providers in order to significantly increase the number of servers hosting the zone to be published.

The AFNIC DNS service is based on the standards of RFCs (RFCs 1034, 1035, 1982, 2181, 2182, 2671, 3226, 3596, 3597, 4343, and 5966 and any future successors), related to the Internet, and the DNS in particular.

In addition, special attention has been paid to the security component of the DNS servers and services in order to maintain a very high level of availability of the information, for example in the event of attacks or the denial of services. At present, a series of national and international servers are deployed as close as possible to the exchange points to ensure the DNS resolution service. To ensure a high level of availability, Anycast technology is applied to overcome the issues involved in the geographical location of sensitive servers. Through an effective pooling of DNS server resources, it ensures better resistance to denial of service attacks as the number of physical servers to attack is very high, and the geographical attraction of traffic by each server is very strong. Maintenance of the nodes is also improved since interventions on a given server have no effect on the visibility of the Anycast cloud for users.
As explained in the answer to Question 34 (Geographic Diversity), the registry also relies on two operators of Anycast clouds to expand the international coverage of the DNS nodes which must respond to queries for the domain extensions hosted on them. The two operators are Netnod Autonomica and PCH (Packet Clearing House) who are both known for their high quality services; in addition, Netnod Autonomica hosts one the root server i.root-servers.net.

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3 - Provision to registrars of status information relating to the zone servers for the TLD

Registrars interactions with the Registry Systems in two states in regards to the state of the TLD zone servers :
* an operational state where normal registry transactions and operational policies⁄practices result in a cause and effect in resolution of relevant domains AND
* an emergency state where resolution could be threatened by operational problems due to either internal or external factors to the DNS services.

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3.1 - Standard DNS related status information

The SRS supports related updates to domain objects that allow a Registrar to populate internal (glue record) and or external DNS hosts associated with the domain. External hosts result in the correct associated NS records being inserted into the current TLD zone file, this in turns results in DNS resolution being delegated to the identified external hosts. The SRS expresses this status to the Registrar as “Active” in both the EPP API and the SRS Web Portal. The registrar may suspend the NS records associated with the external hosts by applying an EPP client HOLD in the system, which will also be displayed as a status in the same manner. This holds true of the Registry when it applied “Server Hold”. Internal hosts follow the same behaviour with one exception, IP addresses must also be provided to the SRS by the registrar for Internal hosts, resulting in A records or⁄and AAAA records for IPv6 (also known as glue records) being added to the zone file.

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3.2 - Emergency DNS related status information

AFNIC registry services maintain emergency Network Operation Center (NOC) and Customer Service personnel on a 24⁄7⁄365 basis to address escalation and customer issue management. Part of these teams responsibility is to maintain contact lists for technical notification of regular or emergency situations including email lists, names and contact numbers. In the unlikely event that DNS resolution or DNS updates were or were expected to fall out of ICANN mandated SLAs, registrars will be contacted proactively by their email lists, status alerts will be posted to the Registry Operator’s Registrar Relations Web Portals and Customer Service personnel will be prepared to take and address calls on the current DNS status.

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4 - Dissemination of TLD zone files.

Publication of DNS resolution data to the TLD DNS nodes serving resolution :
One of the main challenges of DNS resolution is to provide updated information about the resources associated with a registered domain name. As soon as information is updated by a registrar on behalf of a customer, the latter expects the server to be accessible to its users as soon as possible.
For this reason, updates of DNS resolution data (publication) are entered into the AFNIC SRS, subsequently generated into incremented zone files, and are distributed to the authoritative DNS servers using the two following methods :
* Incremental updates every 10 minutes
and
* Complete publication of the zone.

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4.1 - Incremental updates every 10 minutes

The principle of publication by Dynamic Update (RFC 2136 and 2137) is designed to publish only the changes to the zone that have occurred since the last update. At the registry level, we have opted to propagate every 10 minutes the changes made during the last 10 minutes on all the zones managed. In this way, any changes made will naturally be published in the next 10 minutes.

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4.2 - Complete publication of the zone

In addition to the publication described above, the registry’s DNS operations team produces a complete publication of all the data for all the zones once a week by running a series of computer scripts which regenerates zonefile from database, through the same validation and integrity mechanisms as dynamic publication. This is used as a training for eventual recovery measures to be triggered.

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4.3 - Propagation mechanism

Whether during the publication by Dynamic Update or complete publication, the propagation mechanism is the same. The process involving the generation of the various zone files is triggered, without blocking any operation on the registration system.
These zone files are then transmitted in full to the authoritative server, via the AXFR protocol in conformance with RFC 5936. Once received and processed by the authoritative server, notifications are sent to secondary servers that will retrieve the changes in the different zones via the IXFR protocol in conformity with RFC 1995. The choice of an incremental (rather than complete) update of the zone files to the secondary servers during the dissemination process has been made to avoid sending large amounts of data to remote sites.

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4.4 - Zone File Access⁄Distribution

In compliance with Specification 4, Section 2, AFNIC registry services will offer a subscription service for qualifying applicants to download a stateful copy of the TLD zone file no more than once per 24 hours period. Distribution of the zone file will occur through the ICANN authorized Centralized Zone Data Access Provider.

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5 - Dissemination of contact or other information concerning domain name registrations (Whois service)

The AFNIC RDDS (Whois) service is in direct connection with the database of the Shared Registration System and offers access to the public administrative and technical data of the TLD. Contact data associated with registrations in the SRS is accessible both on port 43 (following specifications of RFC 3912) and through web access.

Data that can be accessed through the RDDS include:
* contact data : holder, administrative, technical, billing
* domain data : domain name, status
* host data : name servers, IP addresses
* ephemeris : creation, expiration dates
* registrar data
These data elements are fully compliant to the mapping of RFCs 5730 to 5734 and an example of standard port 43 output is given at the end of answer to Question 26 (WHOIS).

Both web and port 43 RDDS offer natively compliance with privacy law with a “restricted diffusion” flag. This option is activated through EPP (see Question 25 (EPP)) while creating or updating a contact and automatically understood by the Whois server to anonymize the data. The choice to activate restricted diffusion is made in compliance with the policy and the local rules of the TLD.

This service is accessible both in IPv4 and IPv6. The AFNIC RDDS service access is rate limited to ensure performance in the event of extreme query volumes generated in the cases of distributed denial of service (DDOS) and⁄or RDDS data-mining activities.

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6 - Internationalized Domain Names

Based on AFNIC’s Back-end registry’s operation experience, the .MUTUELLE TLD will allow registration of IDN domain names in full compliance with RFCs 5890 to 5893 and based on the character set described in detail in our answer to Question 44 (IDN). IDN will be implemented following the policies presented in detail in our answer to Question 44 (IDN). For the purpose of clarity, a brief summary of this information is presented below.

The list of characters includes the French language as well as several other regional languages in use in France : Occitan, Breton, Frankish, Reunion Creole, Catalan, Corsican and Guadeloupe Creole. The list consists of some of the characters of the Latin1 standard (ISO-8859-1) and the Latin9 standard (ISO-8859-15), respectively in Unicode Latin-1 Supplement and Latin Extended-A blocks.

Each domain name registration is autonomous : the registration of an ASCII domain name and the registration of one of its diacritic variants are independent. The actual registered domain name is the only one to be effectively registered and published by the Whois and DNS Services.

However, the registration of a given ASCII or IDN domain name leads to a default preference to its registrant (original registrant) for the subsequent registration of any of its diacritics variants. Any of these variants can be registered normally by the original registrant at any time. Other registrants are required to request a specific authorization code delivered by the Registry Operator before they can proceed to the registration of such names. This policy applies whether the original registrant initially applies for an ASCII domain name or a diacritic variant of that ASCII domain name. In the latter case, the ASCII name is subject to the same preference policy than the other diacritic variants of the domain name.

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7 - DNS Security Extensions (DNSSEC).

AFNIC registry services fully support DNSSEC and will sign the .MUTUELLE TLD zone from initiation into the root servers.

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7.1 - Registrar Services

Operations are available for registrars through EPP with the SecDNS EPP extension version 1.1 exclusively (as defined in RFC 5910) or through registrars extranet (with a web form). Among the two interfaces defined in the RFC 5910, AFNIC chose the “dsData” interface : domain names keys are solely under registrars management and are not exchanged, only the keys hashes (DS records) are sent by the registrars to the registry back-end service provider. Each domain name can be associated to 6 distinct key materials at most.

Zonecheck : A complementary monitoring and validation service.
AFNIC notes that “Zonecheck” is a DNS monitoring and validation service that is outside standard registry services and could be offered by third parties other than a Registry Operator. In respect of DNSSEC monitoring, each change of DS data related to a domain name is verified by the AFNIC ZoneCheck tool, out of band of standard EPP registry functions. Registrar are notified via email of detected errors. This helps Registrars ensure the DNSSEC validation will operate correctly, for example by avoiding the “Security Lameness” scenario outlined in section 4.4.3 of RFC 4641.

Registrar transfer by default removes DS data from the zonefile. This is done to cover cases when a current signed domain names goes from a DNSSEC enabled registrar to another registrar that is not yet prepared to handle DNSSEC materials (the registrar can also be the DNS hoster or not, but in both cases DS data of the domain name has to flow from the registrar to the registry, hence the registrar must have the technical capabilities to do so).

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7.2 - Signing Activity

Each public-facing DNS server operated by AFNIC or through its anycast providers is fully DNSSEC enabled through RFC 4033, 4034, and 4035 by virtue of using standard open source software (BIND & NSD) that are developed according to these RFCs.

Each zone uses a standard Key Signing Key (KSK)⁄Zone Signing Key (ZSK) split (as defined in RFC 4641, section 3.1), which enables longer KSKs and frequent re-signing of zone content to deter DNSSEC-related brute force attacks and to make sure that keys rollovers are part of registry staff operational habits. All keys are created using RSA algorithms, as defined in RFC 4641 section 3.4 : KSKs are 2048 bits long (as recommended for “high value domains” in section 3.5 of RFC 4641), and ZSKs are 1024 bits. Algorithm SHA-256 (as defined in RFC 4509) is used for DS generations. Signatures of zone resources records are done using SHA-2 and more specifically RSA⁄SHA-256 as defined by RFC 5702.

Each zone has its set of dedicated KSKs and ZSKs: one of each is active at all time, while a second of each is ready to be used at next rollover. A third ZSK may be kept in the zone after being inactive (not used any more for signing) to ease transitions and make sure DNS caches can still use it to verify old resource records signatures. Following recommendations in section 4.1.1 “Time considerations” of RFC 4641, with a zone maximum TTL being 2 days and a zone minimum TTL of 1.5 hour, ZSK rollovers are done each 2 months, KSK rollovers are done each 2 years. Their expirations are monitored. Rollovers are operated according to the “Pre-Publish Key Rollover” procedure detailed in section 4.2.1.1 of RFC 4641.

1 year worth of key materials is generated in advance. Encrypted backup of keys is made on Hardware Security Module (HSM) cards (Storage Master Key), which are securely stored physically.

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8 - Other relevant services

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8.1 - Security and Redundancy

AFNIC maintains primary and secondary datacenter locations as well as redundant key personal operating locations. High availability of AFNIC Registry infrastructure is provided through the implementation of either load‐balancing, or fail‐over capacity in various layers of the architecture. It also enables fast scalability through expertise in virtualization technologies. AFNIC’s infrastructure is globally virtualized apart from services requiring very high performance rate and⁄or specific access to dedicated CPU for demanding computation such as DNSSEC zone signing or databases.
AFNIC maintains robust secure policies, protocols and third party testing and certification of security measures and practises. Systems involved in the AFNIC registry services used standard multi-factor authentication, high encryption transmission of data and are kept current with industry advancement in security technologies and best practices in prevention of data breaches. Registry systems follow standard EPP practices including required passphrases associated with each domain object and the use of those passphrases to successfully negotiate and verify domain transfers. Registrars are networked source restricted (2 IP addresses authorized by registrar) for SRS access in addition to the use of digital certificates and contact to Customer Service is restricted to registered Registrar personnel only (identified by personal passphrases⁄credentials listed on file).

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8.2 - Consensus Policy Compliance

AFNIC registry services will fully comply with Specification 1 of the Application Guidebook, below is a list of current consensus policies that have cause and effect on the systems of a registry operator. This list will be updated from time to time as per the ICANN process and the AFNIC registry services will be adjusted to maintain and support full compliance.

* Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (adopted by ICANN Board 26 August 1999; form of implementation documents approved 24 October 1999).
* Inter-Registrar Transfer Policy (effective on 12 November 2004, adopted by ICANN Board 25 April 2003; implementation documents issued 13 July 2004).
* Registry Services Evaluation Policy (effective on 15 August 2006, adopted by ICANN Board 8 November 2005; implementation documents posted 25 July 2006)
* AGP Limits Policy (effective on 1 April 2009, adopted by ICANN Board on 26 June 2008; implementation documents posted 17 December 2008)

Table of Contents

1 - Global description
2 - Shared Registration System (SRS) architecture
3 - SRS architecture diagram
4 - Detailed infrastructure
5 - Rate limitation
6 - Interconnectivity and synchronization with other systems
7 - Performance and scalability
8 - Resources
8.1 - Initial implementation
8.2 - On-going maintenance

------------------------
1 - Global description

As one of the critical registry functions, the SRS is part of the core of AFNIC back-end registry solution as deployed to fit the needs of the .MUTUELLE TLD.
It both provides services for registrars and generates the data used for DNS publication and resolution service. In that aspect, it is responsible for most of the SLA’s to be respected. The following description will provide full and detailed description of the architecture of the SRS both from an application and from an infrastructure point of view.
This architecture is the same as the one used in production by AFNIC to operate .fr zone and has been fully functional for the last 15 years, with the ability to meet stringent SLAs as well as to scale from the management of a few thousands domain names in operations to over 2 million in late 2011.

------------------------
2 - Shared Registration System (SRS) architecture

AFNIC SRS is based on a three-layer architecture : front-end, business logic, middleware.
These three layers are supported by the data layer which is described in detail in Question 33 (Database Capabilities).

= Front end : Extensible Provisioning Protocol (EPP) and extranet =

The automated front-end of the SRS is EPP.
The EPP interface and implementation complies with RFCs 3735 and 5730-5734. It is itself described in detail in Question 25 (EPP).
An extranet web interface also offers the same functions as the EPP interface.
Both theses interfaces are supported by the same middleware layer.

= Business logic : flexible policies =

The Business logic enables configurability in order to allow for the adjustment of registry systems to the chosen registry policies. Various policy-related parameters such as delay for redemption, access rate-limiting and penalties can be configured in this layer.
The Business logic also incorporates a scheduler which provides for semi-automated processes with human validation in order to address specific policy needs which cannot or should not be fully automated.

= Middleware : a guaranty for evolution and scalability =

The Middleware layer guarantees a consistent and registry oriented access for all the TLD data. All registry applications operate through this layer in order to centralize object management rules. It enables access through different programming languages (Java, php and Perl in AFNIC solution) with same rules and ease of switching from one language to another in case of application refactoring or migration.

= Data =

The Data layer is the structured data repository for domain, contact, operations, historization of transactions, as well as registrars and contracts data. It provides all the necessary resilient mechanisms to ensure 100% uptime and full recovery and backup.
It also provides a complete toolbox for the fine tuning of the various applications. This layer is described in more details in Question 33 (Database capacities).

------------------------
3 - SRS architecture diagram

[see attached diagram Q24_3_SRS_architecture_diagram.pdf]
Diagram : SRS architecture diagram
Description : This diagram shows global interaction between Internet, DMZ (Demilitarized Zone) and private network zones. Topology of network and servers is illustrated including dedicated IP address scheme and network flows.

This diagram does not shows additional sandbox and preproduction services. These services are offered respectively for registrars and back-end developer team to stabilize developments before production delivery. They are fully iso-functional to the SRS description above.

= SRS logical diagram =

Our robust infrastructure shows dual Internet Service Provider (ISP) connectivity both in IPv4 and IPv6 (Jaguar and RENATER), redundant firewall and switching infrastructure. This part of the architecture is mutualised for all TLDs hosted.

The networking architecture dedicates LAN for administration, backup and production.

Servers are hosted on different network zones : database for database, private for servers not visible on the internet and public for external servers visible on the DMZ. Dedicated zones are also set up for monitoring servers, administration servers or desktop and backup servers.
Each server is load balanced and the service is not impacted by the loss of one server, the capacity of each server being sized to be able to host the whole traffic.

Servers hosting the .MUTUELLE TLD are shared with up to an estimated number of 20 TLDs of comparable scale and use case.

= SRS physical diagram =

The IP scheme used is the following :

2001:67c:2218:1::4:0⁄64 for IPv6 Internet homing
192.134.4.0⁄24 for Ipv4 Internet homing

= Production LAN =

192.134.4.0⁄24 for public network IP range
10.1.50.0⁄24, 10.1.30.0⁄24 for private network IP ranges distributed on the zones described above.

= Backup LAN =

172.x.y.0⁄24 : x is different on each network zone. y is fixed to the value of the associated production LAN in the same zone (for example Private zone production LAN being 10.1.”50”.0⁄24, Private zone backup LAN is 172.16.”50”.0⁄24)

= Administration LAN =

172.z.y.0⁄24 : z is the value of x+1, x being the digit chosen for the corresponding Backup LAN in the same zone. y is fixed to the value of the associated production LAN in the same zone (for example Private zone production LAN being 10.1.”50”.0⁄24, Private zone administration LAN is 172.17.”50”.0⁄24).

Hot standby of the production database is automatically taken into account by the SRS Oracle Transparent Network Substrate configuration. Therefore if the database are migrated in hot standby due to failure of part of the system, the SRS access is automatically swapped to the new base.

------------------------
4 - Detailed infrastructure

The SRS modules play a central role in the back-end registry infrastructure. This is highlighted in terms of capacity expenditures (CAPEX) by the fact that SRS modules account for approximately 30% of the global CAPEX of the solution.

In the following description “server” will refer to either a physical or a virtual server.
Due to very fast growth of performance in storage and processors technologies, the infrastructure described below could be replaced by more powerful one available at the time of the set up for the same cost.

At the applicative and system level, AFNIC’s SRS systems are shared with up to an estimated number of 20 TLDs of comparable scale and use case.

AFNIC has invested in very efficient VMWare Vsphere virtualization infrastructure. It provides a flexible approach to recovery both through quick activation of a new fresh server in case of local failure (cold standby) and through global failover to a mirrored infrastructure on another site.
This comes in addition to natural redundancy provided by the load balanced servers.

Nevertheless, internal protocols and best practices for server virtualization have shown that very high I⁄O-intensive (Input⁄Output) application servers are not good clients for virtualization. The SRS is therefore hosted on virtualized infrastructure to the exception of the database, which presents very high rate of I⁄O, and is hosted on a dedicated physical infrastructure.

The whole SRS service is located in the primary datacenter used by AFNIC in production, the secondary datacenter serves as failover capacity.

The Front end is hosted on two load balanced virtual servers and two load balanced reverse proxies ensuring authentication of registrars.

The Business logic is hosted on two load balanced dedicated virtual servers. Scalability of these servers is ensured by quick resizing offered by virtualization technology if needed.

The Middleware is hosted on two load balanced dedicated virtual servers. It can be extended to any amount of servers needed to ensure performance commensurate with the amount of traffic expected. The dual use of Apache HAproxy and of a centralized lock mechanism ensure good queuing of each request in the system despite heavy load and parallelized middleware data access.

Scalability of all these servers are ensured by quick resizing offered by virtualization technology if needed.

All databases are based on Oracle technologies. The main database is replicated logically on two sites. Full local recovery processes are in place in case of loss of integrity through the Oracle redolog functions which provides full recovery by replay of historized logged requests.

The whole SRS service is located in the primary Tier 3 datacenter used by AFNIC in production, the secondary datacenter serves as failover capacity. Continuity mechanisms at a datacenter level are described in Questions 34 (Geographic Diversity), 39 (Registry Continuity) and 41 (Failover testing).

The detailed list of infrastructures involved can be described as follows :

This infrastructure is designed to host up to an estimated number of 20 TLDs of comparable scale and use case.

= Virtual servers =

EPP proxy : 2 servers
* Processor: 1 bi-core CPU
* Main memory: 8 GB of RAM
* Operating system: RedHat RHEL 6
* Disk space: 500 GB

EPP service : 2 servers
* Processor: 1 quad-core CPU
* Main memory: 16 GB of RAM
* Operating system: RedHat RHEL 6
* Disk space: 1 TB

Business logic : 2 servers
* Processor: 1 bi-core CPU
* Main memory: 16 GB of RAM
* Operating system: RedHat RHEL 6
* Disk space: 500 GB

Data Gateway : 2 servers
* Processor: 1 quad-core CPU
* Main memory: 16 GB of RAM
* Operating system: RedHat RHEL 6
* Disk space: 1 TB

= Data storage : see Question 33 (Database Capabilities) =

= Physical server =

Rate limiting database : 1 server
* Processor: 1 bi-core CPU
* Main memory: 8 GB of RAM
* Operating system: RedHat RHEL 6
* Disk space: 500 GB

Back up servers, backup libraries, Web whois server : mutualized with the global registry service provider infrastructure

= Additionnal infrastructure =

Failover infrastructure : 6 servers
* 1 bi-core CPU, 8 GB of RAM, RedHat RHEL 6, 500 GB

Sandbox infrastructure : 6 servers
* 1 bi-core CPU, 8 GB of RAM, RedHat RHEL 6, 500 GB

Preproduction infrastructure : 1 server
* 1 quad-core CPU, 16 GB of RAM, RedHat RHEL 6, 1 TB

------------------------
5 - Rate limitation

To ensure resiliency of the SRS a rate limitation and penalty mechanisms are in place.
Rate limitation and penalties are directly implemented on the front end server.

Access is rate limited through token-bucket algorithms with rate-limiting IP data stored on a dedicated database.
Penalties are applied as follow :
* Any command that follows a login command is immediately executed but the next one is only taken into account 2 seconds later. The following commands are not penalized (unless they do not follow one of the limitation rules).
* For the same domain name, the domain:check commands will not be able to follow themselves more than 2 times every 4 seconds. Beyond this rate, a 2 second penalty will be applied on the following domain:check commands (for the same domain name). For instance, it is possible to have a domain:check follow a domain:create command that already followed a first domain:check on a same domain name without any penalty.
* On the other hand, a customer making several domain:check commands on a same domain name will need to respect a 4 second delay between the first and the third call if he wishes not to be penalized.
* Any domain:create command on an already existing domain name induce an additional 2 seconds in the answer time of this command.
* Any domain:info command on a domain name that is not in your portfolio and for which you do not indicate the auth_info induce an additional 1 second in the answer time of this command.

------------------------
6 - Interconnectivity and synchronization with other systems

= Whois (RDDS) =

The whois service will be described in detail in question 27. It is hosted on two servers directly connected to the main production database through read only API. Data updated by the SRS are immediately visible in the Whois with no further synchronisation needed. Rate limitation is applied on RDDS service to avoid any load on the database due to Whois direct access. Hot standby of the production database is automatically taken into account by the Whois Oracle Transparent Network Substrate configuration. Therefore if SRS and database are migrated in hot standby due to failure of part of the system, the Whois service is automatically swapped to the new architecture.

= Back office⁄billing⁄Escrow =

Back-office, escrow and billing system is hosted on mutualized server. It operates directly on production data through the middleware layer to ensure integrity of data. These can be considered as fully synchronous applications. Hot standby of the production database is automatically taken into account by the Middleware layer Transparent Network Substrate configuration. Therefore if SRS and database are migrated in hot standby due to failure of part of the system, the back office and billing service are automatically swapped to the new architecture.

= Monitoring =

Monitoring is operated through probes and agents scanning systems with a 5 minutes period. The monitoring system gets snmp data from all servers described in the SRS architecture and also from dedicated Oracle monitoring agent for the database. A specific prove for EPP simulating a full domain creation is also activated, still with the 5 minutes period.

= Dispute resolution =

Any operation on domain names triggered in the context of a dispute resolution is made through a back-office tool (see Back office)

= DNS publication =

DNS publication relies on a specific table of the production database hosted on the same oracle instance. These data are directly generated by the SRS system. Dynamic Update batches are generated at each operation. The use of theses batches for DNS Dynamic update or of the whole data for full zonefile generation are made directly from these production data. No further synchronization is needed. The detail of frequency and workflow for dns publication is described in Question 35 (DNS) and Question 32 (Architecture). Hot standby of the production database is automatically taken into account by the DNS publication Transparent Network Substrate configuration. Therefore if SRS and database are migrated in hot standby due to failure of part of the system, the dns publication is automatically swapped to the new architecture.

------------------------
7 - Performance and scalability

The Registry’s SRS offers high level production SLAs and derives from the branch of systems that have evolved over the last 15 years to successfully operate a set of french ccTLDs.

The Registry’s SRS is used to operate .fr, .re, .yt, .pm, .tf, .wf TLDs. It is used by more than 800 registrars in parallel managing more than 2 millions domain names.

AFNIC’s SRS is designed to meet ICANN’s Service-level requirements as specified in Specification 10 (SLA Matrix) attached to the Registry Agreement.

Actual and current average performance of AFNIC’s SRS is :
* SRS availability : 99,4%
* SRS session-command RTT : 400ms for 99,4% of requests
* SRS query command RTT : 500ms
* SRS transform command RTT : 1,4 s on availability period
* SRS max downtime : 2 hours⁄month

As described in Question 31 (Technical Overview) in relation to each of the phases of the TLD’s operations, the following transaction loads are expected on the SRS :
* launch phase : up to 400 queries⁄hour
* routine ongoing operations : up to 1,500 queries⁄hour

The system is designed to handle up to 50,000 domain names and up to 2 requests per second.

The targeted TLD size being approximately 1,500 domain names after 3 years of operations and the expected peak transaction rate being 1,500 queries⁄hour, this ensures that enough capacity is available to handle the launch phase, unexpected demand peaks, as well as rapid scalability needs.

Capacity planning indicators are set up to anticipate exceptional growth of the TLD.
Technologies used enables quick upgrade on all fields :
* Servers : virtual resizing to add CPUs or disk space if resource is available on the production ESX servers. If not, 2 spare additional ESX servers can be brought live if additional performance is needed.
* Database : database capacity has been greatly oversized to avoid need of replacement of this physical highly capable server. Precise capacity planning will ensure that sufficient delay will be available to acquire new server if needed. A threshold of 40% of CPU use or total storage capacity triggers alert for acquisition.

------------------------
8 - Resources

Four categories of profiles are needed to run the Registry’s Technical Operations : Registry Operations Specialists (I), Registry Systems Administrators (II), Registry Software Developer (III) and Registry Expert Engineers (IV). These categories, skillset and global availability of resources have been detailed in Question 31 (Technical Overview of Proposed Registry) including specific resources set and organisation to provide 24⁄7 coverage and maintenance capacity.
Specific workload for SRS management is detailed below.

------------------------
8.1 - Initial implementation

The set up is operated on the pre-installed virtualization infrastructure. It implies actions by system, database and network administrators to create the virtual servers and install the applicative packages.

Then, developers, assisted by a team of experts and senior staff members apply proper configuration for the given TLD. Specific policy rules are configured and tested.

The initial implementation effort is estimated as follows :

Database Administrator 0.03 man.day
Network Administrator 0.03 man.day
System Administrator 0.03 man.day
Software Developer 0.10 man.day
Database Engineer 0.10 man.day
Software Engineer 0.20 man.day
DNS Expert Engineer 0.10 man.day

------------------------
8.2 - On-going maintenance

On-going maintenance on the SRS includes integration of new policy rules, evolution of technology, bug fixing, infrastructure evolution, failover testing.

Although all the defined technical profiles are needed for such on-going maintenance operations, on a regular basis, it is mainly a workload handled by monitoring and development teams for alert management and new functional developments, respectively.

The on-going maintenance effort per year is estimated as follows, on a yearly basis :

Operations Specialist 0.40 man.day
Database Administrator 0.10 man.day
Network Administrator 0.10 man.day
System Administrator 0.10 man.day
Software Developer 0.20 man.day
Database Engineer 0.05 man.day
Network Engineer 0.05 man.day
System Engineer 0.05 man.day
Software Engineer 0.05 man.day

Table of Contents

1 - Global description
2 - Description of commands
2.1 - Introduction
2.2 - Global commands
2.2.1 - session management commands ‘greeting’, ‘hello’, ‘login’, ‘logout’
2.2.2 - poll command ‘poll’
2.3 - domain commands
2.3.1 - query commands ‘check’, ‘info’
2.3.2 - transform commands
2.4 - contact command
2.5 - Return Codes
3 - Compliance to RFCs
3.1 - Delivery process
3.2 - XML validation
3.3 - Cross checking
4 - Specific extensions
4.1 - Specific extension : DNSSEC
4.2 - Specific extension : IDN
4.3 - Specific extension : Sunrise period
4.3.1 - New objects
4.3.2 - command extensions
4.3.2.1 - EPP Query Commands
4.3.2.2 - EPP Transform Commands
4.3.2.2.1 - EPP ʹcreateʹ Command
4.3.2.2.2 - EPP ʹupdateʹ Command
4.3.2.2.3 - EPP ʹdeleteʹ Command
5 - Resources
5.1 - Initial implementation
5.2 - On-going maintenance

------------------------
1 - Global description

The main service of the Shared Registration System (SRS) for its registrars is the Extensible Provisioning Protocol (EPP) interface. The interface has been developed and is maintained in full compliance with the relevant standards RFCs 5730-5732 and with RFCs 5910 and 3735 for the standard registration interface. Contacts are handled as described in RFC 5733. Transport is guaranteed according to RFC 5734. In addition, AFNIC’s EPP implementation is also compliant with RFCs 4034, 5730 and 5731 for DNSSEC support and with RFCs 5890 and 5891 for Internationalized Domain Name (IDN) support.

The EPP service is available through IPv4 and IPv6, based on a SSL certificate authentication.
No specific extension is used.

Note : Throughout the document we write the XML markups describing the EPP requests between the two characters ʹ and ʹ.

For contact management, the registry service provider uses a dedicated “Repository Identifier” for each TLD, this Repository identifier being declared to IANA prior to the launch of the TLD. It is also used as a post-extension to contact nic-handles, each contact for a given TLD being then identified by a unique code XX1234-REPID. An example of this declaration can be found for .fr extension (2008-05-10) at IANA epp repository identifier’s page :

[...]
NORID, #x004E #x004F #x0052 #x0049 #x0044 UNINETT Norid AS 2007-12-10 info&norid.no
FRNIC, #x0046 #x0052 #x004e #x0049 #x0043 AFNIC 2008-05-29 tld-tech&afnic.fr
CIRA, #x0043 #x0049 #x0052 #x0041 Canadian Internet Registration Authority 2009-07-22 info&cira.ca
[...]

------------------------
2 - Description of commands

------------------------
2.1 - Introduction

The EPP interface, based on a double system of real-time answer by the server and asynchronous notifications, implements all standard operations : ‘domain:create’ (1 to 10 years), ‘domain:info’, ‘domain:checkʹ, ‘domain:transfer’, ‘domain:update’, ‘domain:renew’. Similar commands are available concerning contact objects.
The registry’s EPP server implement name servers management as domain name attributes in conformity with RFC 5732.

[see attached diagram Q25_2.1_EPP_xsd_main_schema.pdf]
Diagram : EPP xsd main schema
Description : Registry service provider SRS EPP interface is based on standard xsd schema as defined in RFC 5730.

In the following description of the commands, an example of client command and server answer has been added only for the create command as an example. All other commands work in the same way in full compliance with descriptions and schema of RFCs 5730-5734 and same examples can be found in the RFCs text.

------------------------
2.2 - Global commands

------------------------
2.2.1 - session management commands ‘greeting’, ‘hello’, ‘login’, ‘logout’

As all of these commands are basic and totally compliant with the IETF’s STD69 (RFCs 5730 to 5734), they have not be described again here.

Focus points are :
* Enforcing a limit of 2 simultaneous connection per registrar (checked at login), ensuring equitable access for all registrars.
* List of namespaces announced in ʹgreetingʹ is strictly checked in registrar ʹloginʹ command.
* ʹhelloʹ can be used by registrars as a keepalive command, otherwise inactive sessions are closed by server after 20 minutes.

------------------------
2.2.2 - poll command ʹpollʹ

For some operation on objects, notifications are added in a queue that can be read by using the ʹpollʹ command. The use of the ʹpollʹ command will retrieve the oldest message in the queue. The number of messages awaiting in the queue is indicated at each command answer with the ʹmsgQʹ element. To delete a message from the queue, the ʹpollʹ command should be used with the message number as indicated in RFC 5730.

------------------------
2.3 - domain commands

------------------------
2.3.1 - query commands ʹcheckʹ, ʹinfoʹ

ʹcheckʹ command allows the client to check if a domain object is available.
ʹinfoʹ command allows the client to retrieve information on any objects (domain names or contacts) that are indicated in the command. Registrars can only use this command for objects they already manage in their portfolio. This command can also be used for domain names outside the registrar’s portfolio if the ʹauth_infoʹ code that protects the domain is given as well.

------------------------
2.3.2 - transform commands

In compliance with RFCs 5730 (commands presentation), 5731 (domain objects), 5732 (contact objects) and 5910 (DNSSEC specifications) AFNIC’s Registry solution use the following commands that allow for objects updates :

= ʹcreateʹ =

The EPP protocol (RFC 5730) allows domain name creation (RFC 5731). The registry service provider allows two types of creations: direct domain creations (with auth_info freely determined by the registrar) and domain names creation “with authorization code” (the correct auth_info value must be sent for the creation to succeed)

Both are standard domain:create command as defined in the RFCs.

[see attached diagram Q25_2.3.2_EPP_create_command_example.pdf]
Diagram : EPP client create command and server answer example
Description : This is a standard EPP client create command following RFC 5731. Parameters sent in the following example are domain name, period of registration, registrant identifier, administrative, technical and billing identifier, and auth_info password followed by standard EPP server create command answer compliant with RFC 5731. Parameters sent in the answer are result code, message, creation and expiry date, and client and server transaction ID.

Creation “with authorization code” enables the registry service provider to manage protected names or names under specific registration conditions. An authorization code is associated to three items (the registrar, the domain name and the holder nic-handle ) and is delivered outside the automated process through a manual process defined by a specific policy rule. The registry-generated authorization code must be present in the ʹdomain:authInfoʹ item of the creation request. No registrar-computed value is permitted.
In every case, domain creation proceeds through standard EPP command.

[see attached diagram Q25_2.3.2_SRS_authorisation_code.pdf]
Diagram : SRS authorisation code
Description : The EPP auth_info field that can usually be freely filled in by the registrar has a specific use for registration of reserved names : an authorisation_code is delivered through an out of band process and must be used in the create command for the answer to be successful.

= ʹupdateʹ =

The registry offers EPP ʹdomain:updateʹ command to :
* update the administrative, technical, registrant contacts of a domain name
* update the DNS and DNSsec configuration of a domain name
* update the status of a domain name or its auth_info

This command is also used to add or delete signed delegations (DS records), through a ʹsecDNS:updateʹ extension if DNSSEC operations are wanted and if the secDNS extension was chosen by the client at login.

When requested the status of domain name is changed to “pendingUpdate”.

= ʹdeleteʹ =

The whole deletion process (including redemption grace period and pending delete) of a domain name comes with a restoration mechanism (restore). This mechanism, based on RFC 3915, is applied to the deletion operation only.

The status of the domain name is switched to ʺpendingDeleteʺ for the total duration of the ʺredemption grace periodʺ and as long as the domain is not restored or totally deleted.

= ʹtransferʹ =

The registry offers standard EPP ʹdomain:transferʹ command to allow a change of registrar to the registrant.

A transfer can be initiated only by an incoming registrar and using the auth_info that the registrant has given him. This standard mechanism acts as a security and associates the triggering of transfer to the acceptance of the owner of the domain.
The transfer operation can be triggered only if the domain is not protected by a clientTransferProhibited lock.

The transfer implementation follows RFC 5730 section 2.9.3.4 and its lifecycle follow the inter registrar transfer policy as revised by the ICANN in 2008.

------------------------
2.4 - contact command

Postal addresses are managed as indicated in RFC 5731 with the following specific rules : only the type “loc” for postal addresses is accepted and only one element of type ʹcontact:postalInfoʹ can be indicated for the contact .

ʹdiscloseʹ parameters is implemented and enables to activate restricted publication in the RDDS.
The choice to activate restricted diffusion is made in compliance with the policy and the local rules of the TLD towards privacy law.

------------------------
2.5 - Return Codes

Some operations under normal working conditions of the SRS will answer with a 1000 return code. Otherwise, two different levels of return codes have been chosen according to the two different types of problems that can happen on the SRS :
* minor problems answer with Return code 1001 : Minor problems do not affect requests reception. This code indicates the command was taken into account but that its complete execution is delayed. The final result will be known later on and will be sent in a message placed in the notification queue of the concerned registrar(s).
* blocking problems answer with Return code 2400 “command failed” : no operations that transform a domain name can be taken into account.

------------------------
3 - Compliance to RFCs

The system has been launched compliant with RFCs. Mechanisms are in place to ensure that ongoing maintenance and new functional delivery stay compliant with RFCs.

------------------------
3.1 - Delivery process

The SRS evolutions are developed on the development environment.
The development process implies strict coding rules and use of shared best practices. Pair programming is standard practice. Unit test are developed prior to function development to ensure resiliency of the produced code.

Delivery process take place in four steps :
* 1st step : XML validation and RFC compliance is checked through automated tools. A 100% compliance signal must be received to be able to proceed to second step.
* 2nd step : delivery to the pre-production environment. The development is delivered on the preproduction environment. This environment is available for internal testing team. They proceed through a standard Operational Test which goes through a full lifecycle of a domain name. Specific tests are made on new functions in any.
* 3rd step : delivery to the sandbox environment. This sandbox environment is opened for registrar where they have two accounts to validate their clients before production activation.
* 4th step : the new release is delivered in production.

------------------------
3.2 - XML validation

EPP RFC compliance is reached through three mechanisms :
* a batch of unitary tests on each operation, each answer of the server being validated through the XSD schema.
* XML validation through perl XML::LibXML::Schema library
* fuzzy testing, by sending garbage input and checking error return codes.

------------------------
3.3 - Cross checking

EPP cross checking partnership is established with .at Registry operator to validate in sandbox environment prior to delivery in production through mutual agreement.

------------------------
4 - Specific extensions

------------------------
4.1 - Specific extension : DNSSEC

The EPP server provides the secDNS-1-1 extension as described in RFC 5910. Implementation specifications are as follows :
* The server only supports “the DS data interface” (ʹsecDNS:dsDataʹ); section 4.1 of RFC 5910, without information on the associated key (the ʹsecDNS:keyDataʹ element is not included); if information on the key is indicated the server will answer with a 2102 error code.
* DNSSEC elements are only accepted during an update operation request. If included during a create operation the server will answer with a 2103 error code.
* Each domain name can have up to 6 associated DS records : the number of elements ʹsecDNS:dsDataʹ present in the ʹsecDNS:addʹ section during an update operation is therefore limited in order to have the domain name’s final status with no more than 6 DS records.
* The maxSigLife attribute is not supported, its presence inside a client request will generate a 2102 error code.
* The urgent attribute is not supported, its presence inside a client request will generate a 2102 error code.

[see attached diagram Q25_4.1_EPP_xsd_dnssec_extension_schema.pdf]
Diagram : EPP xsd dnssec extension schema
Description : Registry service provider DNSsec EPP secDNS-1-1 extension is based on standard xsd schema as defined in RFC 5910.

------------------------
4.2 - Specific extension : IDN

No specific IDN extension has been used. The script used for the TLD is declared in the greetings and no further indication is needed in the following transaction. Usage is in full compliance with RFCs 5890, 5891, 5892, 5893, and 5894. This may be a pending situation : if a standard IDN extension was to be produced in the months to come it would be added to the EPP schema in order to deal more precisely with each specific language management policies.

------------------------
4.3 - Specific extension : Sunrise period

Sunrise period is managed through a specific EPP extension. The sunrise registration workflow is described in Question 29 (Right Protection Mechanism).

The extension used is described below but will follow work in progress at the IETF initiated by Cloud Registry (draft-tan-epp-launchphase-01.txt). The xsd schema has been designed by AFNIC’s partner CORE and is fully in accordance with the draft. It could be modified before the launch if the IETF draft was to be accepted as an RFC with modifications.

AFNIC Registry extension is fully compatible with extension mechanism described in RFC 5730. It offers trademark holders a specific mapping to provide information related to trademarks. It also enables query function to keep the sunrise process transparent to everybody.

For illustration and further information purposes, please refer to the Q25_4.3_EPP_xsd_sunrise_extension_schema.pdf file attached (EPP XSD sunrise extension schema) which describes the registry back-end services provider’s EPP extension XSD schema used to deal with sunrise period. This schema is designed based on the work in progress at IETF, as initiated by Cloud Registry (draft-tan-epp-launchphase-01.txt). This extension is fully compatible with extension mechanism described in RFC 5730.

------------------------
4.3.1 - New objects

application : to deal with multiple demands on same domain name. The server creates an application object corresponding to the request and assigns an identifier for the application and returns it to the client. This mapping defines an ʹlp:applicationIDʹ element which is used to specify an ID to this object.

phase : optionnal element ʹlp:phaseʹ to be used in case of multiple sunrise phases.

status : status of each application in link with internal state of the process of the application. The ʹlp:statusʹ values that can be used in order to process the applications are pending, invalid, validated, allocated, rejected. These statuses have to be mapped with the sunrise workflow described in Question 29 (Right Protection Mechanism).

claim : claim object contains the details needed to applicantʹs prior right to the domain name.
The ʹlp:claimʹ element has the boolean ʺpreValidatedʺ attribute, which indicates whether a third party validation agency has already validated the claim in case of inter connection with the IP clearing house.

Several child elements of the ʹlp:claimʹ element are defined :
ʹlp:pvrcʹ, the Pre-Validation Result Code, is a string issued by a third-party validation agent. ʹlp:claimIssuerʹ contains the ID of a contact object (as described in RFC 5733) identifying the contact information of the authority which issued the right (for example, a trade mark office or company registration bureau).
ʹlp:claimNameʹ identifies the text string in which the applicant is claiming a prior right. ʹlp:claimNumberʹ contains the registration number of the right (i.e. trademark number or company registration number).
ʹlp:claimTypeʹ indicates the type of claim being made (e.g. trademark, symbol, combined mark,
company name).
ʹlp:claimEntitlementʹ indicates the applicantʹs entitlement to the claim (i.e. owner or licensee). ʹlp:claimRegDateʹ contains the date of registration of the claim.
ʹlp:claimExDateʹ contains the date of expiration of the claim.
ʹlp:claimCountryʹ indicates the country in which the claim is valid.
ʹlp:claimRegionʹ indicates the name of a city, state, province or other geographic region in which the claim is valid. This may be a two-character code from WIPO standard ST.3.

------------------------
4.3.2 - command extensions

------------------------
4.3.2.1 - EPP Query Commands

ʹinfoʹ command is the only extended query command.

In order to indicate that the query is meant for an application object, an ʹlp:infoʹ element is sent along with the regular ʹinfoʹ domain command.

The ʹlp:infoʹ element contains the following child elements :
ʹlp:applicationIDʹ, the application identifier for which the client wishes to query, and ʹlp:phaseʹ (optional), the phase the application is associated with.
If the query was successful, the server replies with an ʹlp:infDataʹ element along with the regular EPP ʹresDataʹ. The ʹlp:infData contains the following child elements:
* ʹlp:applicationIDʹ the application identifier of the returned application.
* ʹlp:phaseʹ (optional) the phase during which the application was submitted or is associated with.
* ʹlp:statusʹ (optional) status of the application.
* ʹlp:claimʹ (optional) one or more ʹlp:claimʹ elements.
If present, the ʹlp:claimʹ elements may contain the child elements as described above in the claim object description.

------------------------
4.3.2.2 - EPP Transform Commands

There are three extended EPP transform commands : ʹcreateʹ, ʹdeleteʹ and ʹrenewʹ

------------------------
4.3.2.2.1 - EPP ʹcreateʹ Command

The EPP ʹcreateʹ command is used to create an application. Additional information is required to submit a domain name application during a launch phase :
* ʹlp:phaseʹ (optional), the phase the application should be associated with
* ʹlp:claimʹ (optional) elements to substantiate the prior rights of the applicant.

When such a ʹcreateʹ command has been processed successfully, the EPP ʹextensionʹ element in the response contains a child ʹlp:creDataʹ element that identifies the registry launchphase namespace and the location of the registry launchphase schema. The ʹlp:creDataʹ element contains a child ʹlp:applicationIDʹ element, which informs the registrar about the application ID the server has assigned.

------------------------
4.3.2.2.2 - EPP ʹupdateʹ Command

This extension defines additional elements to extend the EPP ʹupdateʹ command to be used in conjunction with the domain name mapping.
Registry policies permitting, clients may update an application object by submitting an EPP ʹupdateʹ command along with an ʹlp:updateʹ element to indicate the application object to be updated.
The ʹlp:updateʹ element contains the following child elements:
* ʹlp:applicationIDʹ the application identifier for which the client wishes to update.
* ʹlp:phaseʹ (optional) the phase during which the application was submitted or is associated with.

------------------------
4.3.2.2.3 - EPP ʹdeleteʹ Command

Registry policies permitting, clients may withdraw an application by submitting an EPP ʹdeleteʹ command along with an ʹlp:deleteʹ element to indicate the application object to be deleted. The ʹlp:deleteʹ element contains the following child elements:
* ʹlp:applicationIDʹ the application identifier for which the client wishes to delete.
* ʹlp:phaseʹ (optional) the phase during which the application was submitted or is associated with.

------------------------
5 - Resources

Four categories of profiles are needed to run the Registry’s Technical Operations : Registry Operations Specialists (I), Registry Systems Administrators (II), Registry Software Developer (III) and Registry Expert Engineers (IV). These categories, skill set and global availability of resources have been detailed in Question 31 (Technical Overview of Proposed Registry) including specific resources set and organisation to provide 24⁄7 coverage and maintenance capacity.
Specific workload for EPP management is detailed below.

------------------------
5.1 - Initial implementation

Then, developers, assisted by a senior staff member expert in internet technologies and RFCs apply proper configuration for the given TLD. Compliance is strictly tested.

The initial implementation effort is estimated as follows :

Database Administrator 0.03 man.day
Network Administrator 0.03 man.day
System Administrator 0.03 man.day
Software Developer 0.10 man.day
Software Engineer 0.20 man.day

------------------------
5.2 - On-going maintenance

On-going maintenance on the SRS includes integration of new policy rules, evolution of technology, bug fixing, infrastructure evolution, failover testing.

The on-going maintenance effort per year is estimated as follows, on a yearly basis :

Operations Specialist 0.20 man.day
System Administrator 0.10 man.day
Software Developer 0.15 man.day
Software Engineer 0.10 man.day

Table of Contents

1 - General description
2 - Data access
2.1 Typology of accessible data
2.2 Profiles for data access control
3 - RDDS architecture
4 - RDDS infrastructure
5 - Rate limitation
6 - Reverse lookups
7 - Interconnectivity and synchronization with other systems
8 - Performance and scalability
9 - ICANN Bulk access compliance
10 - RFC compliance
11 - Resources
11.1 - Initial implementation
11.2 - On-going maintenance

------------------------
1 - General description

Registration Data Directory Service (RDDS) is one of the five vital functions of the Registry.
It is in direct connection with the database of the Shared Registration System and offers access to the public administrative and technical data of the registry.
The registry back-end solution implements data access through various interfaces that will be described below as well as their data access policies.

The main focus will be made on Whois on port 43 following RFC 3912 which is the main point of access.
The web Whois offers similar functionalities, is based on the same architecture and will be presented through screenshots.

The following description will provide full and detailed description of the architecture of the RDDS both from an application and from an infrastructure point of view.
This architecture is the same as the one used in production by AFNIC for .FR zone and has been fully functional for the last 15 years, with the ability to meet stringent SLAs as well as to scale from the management of a few thousands domain names in operations to over 2 million in late 2011.

------------------------
2 - Data access

When considering the data access services, we must address :
* the typology of accessible data
* access control : who can access what kind of data
* performance : guarantee of availability and performance for requesting data

Potential limitations to the systems will also be described.
To be able to maintain a good access to everybody (registrar, holders, outside world), our back-end solution provides multiple access with consistent role and access policies.

------------------------
2.1 Typology of accessible data

Data that can be accessed through the RDDS are mainly :
* contact data : holder, administrative, technical, billing
* domain data : domain name, status
* host data : name servers, IP addresses
* ephemeris : creation, expiration dates
* registrar data

These data are all described in the RFCs and fully compliant to the mapping of RFCs 5730 to 5734 and an example of standard port 43 output is given at the end of the present answer.

------------------------
2.2 Profiles for data access control

= Whois for registrars =

The main registrar access tool is our RDDS service accessible both on port 43 following specifications of RFC 3912 and through web access.
Both web and port 43 RDDS offer natively compliance with privacy law with a “restricted disclosure” flag if needed by the TLD. This option is activated through Extensible Provisioning Protocol (EPP) standard ʹdiscloseʹ parameters while creating or updating a contact and automatically understood by the whois server to anonymize the data.
This service is accessible both in IPv4 and IPv6.
RDDS access for registrar is rate limited to ensure performance. (see performance)

= Public whois =

RDDS access is also available on port 43 to everybody through a rate limited access to ensure performance. (see performance)

= Legal requirements =

AFNIC back end solution implements by default French privacy laws with opt-out holder personal data privacy.
This option can be deactivated if necessary to be compliant with the policy of the TLD.

------------------------
3 - RDDS architecture

= RDDS architecture =

RDDS is running on two load balanced front virtual servers directly connected to two databases : the production database for data access, and a rate-limiting service database which applies rate-limiting policies and store IP involved. This server implements token bucket algorithm to flatten traffic on the server.

The two front servers are load balanced using classical round robin implementation.

The network infrastructure is the same as described in the global architecture (referred to below) and no specific dedicated switch or router is to be considered as the rate limiting tool is an applicative one. A global description of the network infrastructure (switch and routers involved) can be found in answers to Question 32 (Architecture).

[see attached diagram Q26_3_RDDS_architecture_diagram.pdf]
Diagram : RDDS architecture diagram
Description : This diagram shows global interaction between Internet, DMZ and private network zones. Topology of network and servers is illustrated including dedicated IP address scheme and network flows.

= RDDS logical diagram =

Our robust infrastructure shows dual Internet Service Provider (ISP) connectivity both in Ipv4 and Ipv6 (Jaguar and RENATER), redundant firewall and switching infrastructure. This part of the architecture is mutualized for all TLDs hosted.

The networking architecture dedicates LAN for administration, backup and production.

Servers are hosted on different network zones : database for database, private for servers not visible on the internet and public for external servers visible on the DMZ. Dedicated zones are also set up for monitoring servers, administration servers or desktop and backup servers.
RDDS servers are directly on the public zone.
Each server is load balanced and the service is not impacted by the loss of one server, the capacity of each server being sized to be able to host the whole traffic.

Servers hosting the .MUTUELLE TLD are shared with up to an estimated number of 20 TLDs of comparable scale and use case.

= RDDS physical diagram =

The IP scheme used is the following :

2001:67c:2218:1::4:0⁄64 for IPv6 Internet homing
192.134.4.0⁄24 for Ipv4 Internet homing

= Production LAN =
192.134.4.0⁄24 for public network IP range
10.1.50.0⁄24, 10.1.30.0⁄24 for private network IP ranges distributed on the zones described above.

= Backup LAN =
172.x.y.0⁄24 : x is a different on each network zone. y is fixed to the value of the associated production LAN in the same zone (for example Private zone production LAN being 10.1.”50”.0⁄24, Private zone backup LAN is 172.16.”50”.0⁄24)

= Administration LAN =
172.z.y.0⁄24 : z is the value of x+1, x being the digit chosen for the corresponding Backup LAN in the same zone. y is fixed to the value of the associated production LAN in the same zone (for example Private zone production LAN being 10.1.”50”.0⁄24, Private zone administration LAN is 172.17.”50”.0⁄24)

Hot standby of the production database is automatically taken into account by the RDDS Oracle Transparent Network Substrate configuration. Therefore if the database are migrated in hot standby due to failure of part of the system, the Registration Data Directory Services (RDDS) access is automatically swapped to the new base.

------------------------
4 - RDDS infrastructure

At the applicative and system level, AFNIC’s RDDS systems are shared with up to an estimated number of 20 TLDs of comparable scale and use case.

The RDDS is therefore hosted on virtualized infrastructure on the public zone (Demilitarized Zone - MZ) to the exception of the database, which presents very high rate of I⁄O (Input⁄Output), and is hosted on a dedicated physical infrastructure on the private zone.

The rate limiting database is hosted on one physical dedicated physical server. This server represents no failure point as a failure of the rate limiting system doesn’t affect the service (a standard uniform limitation is then applied instead of intelligent rate limiting).
The main database is the production database also used by the SRS and other registry vital functions and is described more in detail in Question 33 (Database Capabilities).

Databases are based on Oracle technologies. The main database is replicated logically on two sites. Full local recovery processes are in place in case of loss of integrity through the Oracle redolog functions which provides full recovery by replay of historized logged requests.

The whole RDDS service is located in the primary Tier 3 datacenter used by AFNIC in production, the
secondary datacenter serves as failover capacity. Continuity mechanisms at a datacenter level are described in Questions 34 (Geographic Diversity), 39 (Registry Continuity) and 41 (Failover testing).

The detailed list of infrastructures involved can be described as follows :

This infrastructure is designed to host up to an estimated number of 20 TLDs of comparable scale and use case.

= Virtual servers =

RDDS server : 2 servers
* Processor: 1 bi-core CPU
* Main memory: 16 GB of RAM
* Operating system: RedHat RHEL 6
* Disk space: 500 GB

= Data storage : see Question 33 (Database Capabilities) =

= Physical server =

Rate limiting database : 1 server
* Processor: 1 bi-core CPU
* Main memory: 8 GB of RAM
* Operating system: RedHat RHEL 6
* Disk space: 500 GB

Back up servers, backup libraries, Web whois server : mutualized with the global registry service provider infrastructure

= Additionnal infrastructure =

Failover, sandbox, preproduction infrastructure : 3 servers
* 1 bi-core CPU, 16 GB of RAM, RedHat RHEL 6, 500 GB

------------------------
5 - Rate limitation

To ensure resiliency of the RDDS a rate limitation mechanism is in place.
RDDS is largely used by various public users and registrars, some of them for domain name drop catching. Potentiality of heavy load on this service is very high.
Therefore a rate limitation is applied with threshold calculated from the level of activity expected in order not to penalize normal use of the service. A double level mechanism enables different threshold for identified IP (white list) from registrar and for the public access.

Rate limitation is directly implemented on the front end server.

Access is rate limited through token-bucket algorithms with rate-limiting IP data stored on a dedicated database.
Penalties are applied as follow :
* any IP : 7,200 requests ⁄ 24 hour ⁄ IP.
* white listed IP for registrars : 86,400 requests ⁄ 24 hour ⁄IP.

------------------------
6 - Reverse lookups

The web RDDS access offers advanced searchability capacities.
The following functions are available :

= Direct queries =

* Partial match query on domain name, administrative, technical, and billing contact name and address, registrant name and address, registrar name including all the sub-fields described in EPP (e.g., street, city, state or province, etc.).
* Exact match query on registrar id, name server name, and name server’s IP glue records
The result of direct queries is the object queried (contact, domain, ...)

= Reverse queries =

* Partial match query on domain name, administrative, technical, and billing contact name and address, registrant name and address, registrar name including all the sub-fields described in EPP (e.g., street, city, state or province, etc.).
* Exact match query on registrar id, name server name, and name server’s IP glue records including IPv6 queries.
The result of reverse queries is the list of objects of a given type linked with the result object (list of domains with a given contact result, or name server result,...)

This powerful tool is limited in access :
* Captcha system avoids scripting of the interface.
* Direct queries are open to every user but the number of result objects is limited to 1,000 answers for 1 query.
* Reverse queries can only be done by registrars on the extranet interface, and the number of result objects is limited to 10,000 answers for 1 query. The interface cannot be used more than 100 times a day.

------------------------
7 - Interconnectivity and synchronization with other systems

= SRS =

Data updated by the SRS are immediately visible in the RDDS with no further synchronisation needed. Rate limitation is applied both on SRS and RDDS service to avoid any load on the database. SRS and RDDS are partly in the same network zone, both RDDS servers and EPP SSL reverse proxies being in the public network zone (DMZ).

= Main database =

Hot standby of the production database is automatically taken into account by the RDDS Oracle Transparent Network Substrate configuration. Therefore if database are migrated in hot standby due to failure of part of the system, the RDDS service is automatically swapped to the new architecture.

= Rate limiting database =

No standby is implemented on the rate-limiting database. In case of failure, a standard global limitation is applied while, replacement of the database is operated.

= Monitoring =

Monitoring is operated through probes and agents scanning systems with a 5 minutes period. The monitoring system gets snmp data from all servers described in the RDDS architecture and also from dedicated Oracle monitoring agent for the database.
Hot standby is not implemented on monitoring agents.

------------------------
8 - Performance and scalability

The Registry’s RDDS offers high level production SLAs and derives from the branch of systems that have evolved over the last 12 years to successfully operate a set of french ccTLDs.

The Registry’s RDDS is used to publish .fr, .re, .yt, .pm, .tf, .wf TLDs information. It is used by more than 800 registrars in parallel managing more than 2 millions domain names and by a large user community.

AFNIC’s RDDS is designed to meet ICANN’s Service-level requirements as specified in Specification 10 (SLA Matrix) attached to the Registry Agreement.

As described in Question 31 (Technical Overview) in relation to each of the phases of the TLD’s operations, the following transaction loads are expected on the WHOIS servers : 18 queries⁄hour on average for both launch phase and on going operations.

AFNIC’s WHOIS systems can serve up to 10,000 requests⁄min on load balanced service to be compatible with the launch and growth scenario described in Question 31 (Technical Overview).

The targeted TLD objective being around 1,500 domain names with a provision for 18 queries⁄hour on average, this ensures that enough capacity is available to handle the launching period, as well as demand peaks and unexpected overhead.

Capacity planning indicators are set up to anticipate exceptional growth of the TLD.
Technologies used enables quick upgrade on all fields :
* Servers : virtual resizing to add CPUs or disk space if resource is available on the production ESX servers. If not, 2 spare additional ESX servers can be brought live if additional performance is needed.
* Servers (alternate) : additional servers can be added and taken into account immediately through dns round robin algorithm.
* Database : database capacity has been greatly oversized to avoid need of replacement of this physical powerful server. Precise capacity planning will ensure that sufficient delay will be available to acquire new server if needed. A threshold of 40% of CPU use or total storage capacity triggers alert for acquisition.

------------------------
9 - ICANN Bulk access compliance

The Registry Operator will provide both data escrow and ICANN bulk access in a same process.
Data escrow generates data on a daily basis. One file per week is kept for ICANN access to bulk data.

------------------------
10 - RFC compliance

The system has been launched compliant with RFCs. Mechanisms are in place to ensure that on going maintenance and new functional delivery stay compliant with RFCs.

= Delivery process =

The RDDS evolutions are developed on the development environment.
The development process implies strict coding rules and use of shared best practices. Pair programming is standard practice. Unit test are developed prior to function development to ensure resiliency of the produced code.

Delivery process take place in four steps :
* 1st step : RDDS validation and RFC compliance is checked through automated tools. A 100% compliance signal must be received to be able to proceed to second step.
* 2nd step : delivery to the pre-production environment. The development is delivered on the preproduction environment. This environment is available for internal testing team.
* 3rd step : delivery to the sandbox environment. This sandbox environment is opened for registrar where they have two accounts to validate their clients before production activation.
* 4th step : the new release is delivered in production.

= Format validation =

RDDS rfc compliance is reached through a specific RDDS checker which is use for non-regression test before each new release.

= Cross checking =

Whois cross checking partnership is established with .at Registry operator to validate in sandbox environment prior to delivery in production through mutual agreement.

= Whois Output =

Output of a whois query is 100% similar to the whois query example available in RFC 3912.

------------------------
11 - Resources

------------------------
11.1 - Initial implementation

The initial implementation effort is estimated as follows :

Database Administrator 0.03 man.day
Network Administrator 0.03 man.day
System Administrator 0.03 man.day
Software Developer 0.10 man.day
Software Engineer 0.05 man.day

------------------------
11.2 - On-going maintenance

On-going maintenance on the RDDS module includes mainly integration of new policy rules, privacy law evolutions, evolution of contracts, infrastructure evolution, failover testing.

The on-going maintenance effort per year is estimated as follows, on a yearly basis :

Operations Specialist 0.15 man.day
System Administrator 0.05 man.day
Software Developer 0.05 man.day
Software Engineer 0.10 man.day

Table of Contents

1 - Global description
2 - Data associated with a domain name
2.1 - Technical data
2.2 - Administrative data
3 - Full domain name lifecycle overview
4 - Basic create⁄update⁄delete life cycle
4.1 - create
4.2 - update
4.2.1 - technical update
4.2.2 - administrative update
4.2.3 - context update
4.3 - delete⁄restore
5 - Transfer
6 - Renewal and auto-renewal
7 - Grace period and refund
8 - Resources allocated
8.1 - Initial implementation
8.2 - On-going maintenance

------------------------
1 - Global description

Domain names represents the core technical part of the Domain Name System. The lifecycle of a domain name can have both technical impacts, when it relates to technical data associated with the domain name, and administrative impact when related to the registrant of the domain name.

The following diagrams and descriptions will bring detailed answers to the question of the lifecycle of the domain name in regards to both these aspects

------------------------
2 - Data associated with a domain name

To clearly understand the lifecycle of the domain name, we must first give an exhaustive description of the data involved in the various operations to be made.

------------------------
2.1 - Technical data

A domain name is a technical label used for Domain name resolution. To be effective, it is associated with nameservers -server hosting the configuration of the domain name -, IPv4 and IPv6 addresses - to identify on the network servers independently of the DNS, DNSsec signature information - delegation signer and cryptographic algorithm used-.
Less directly related to the technical basic configuration are :
* = clientHold = label : relates to the DNS or not DNS-publication status of the domain name.
* = auth_info = : a protection code linked with the domain and used by the owner to unlock some operations
* = client*Prohibited = : a list of status activated by the registrar to lock the domain name and prevent some operations
* = server*Prohibited = : a list of status activated by the registry service provider to lock the domain name and prevent some operations

------------------------
2.2 - Administrative data

A domain name has to be managed by his owner. Therefore it comes associated with a list of operational and administrative contacts that can be used to get in relation with the domain name owner or technical staff. The most important are administrative contact, technical contact, billing contact, and of course registrant contact. The last contact object is the registrar object which shows which registrar is in charge of domain name operations at the registry level.

Both these administrative and technical data are modified and used in the lifecycle and we will now describe this in detail.

------------------------
3 - Full domain name lifecycle overview

We have chosen to illustrate the registration lifecycle through a state diagram
This state diagram is joined as a separate file.

[see attached diagram Q27_3_global_lifecycle.pdf]
Diagram : Global Lifecycle
Description : Considering the wide range of the states and transition, the choice has been made to present a linear scenario going through all available operations. In this scenario, impact on registrar objects, registrant objects, domain objects, host objects are described at each step. Also statuses and forbidden operations at each step are indicated.
The following domain states have been introduced to describe the lifecycle major steps :
* registered : the domain name is registered, published in the Registration Data Directory Services (RDDS) but not in the DNS (clientHold label is set or there is no host information)
* active : the domain name is registered, published in the RDDS and in the DNS
redemption : the domain name is registered, published in the RDDS but not in the DNS. It will be - deleted if no action is taken by the registrar.
* locked : specific operations as transfer or delete have been forbidden by the registrar.
Impact on expiry dates has also been indicated though adequate formulas.

All aspects of the registration lifecycle are covered by standard Extensible Provisioning Protocol (EPP) RFCs and the EPP implementation is described in Question 25 (EPP).

------------------------
4 - Basic create⁄update⁄delete life cycle

The basic life cycle is described below without explanation of add grace period. The behavior of add grace period is described in chapter 7.

------------------------
4.1 - create

A domain name is created through a standard EPP domain:create command.
Administrative data linked with the creation are registrant contact, admin contact and technical contact, period before renewal.
Technical data linked with the creation are nameservers host objects, IP address for glue records, auth_info code.
The state of the domain name is REGISTERED if no host objects have been filled.
The state of the domain name is ACTIVE if host objects have been filled.
The state of the domain name can exceptionally be PENDING during the operation if a technical issue makes it asynchronous.
Otherwise this operation is real time and there is no delay elements to be considered.

Elements needed to create a domain are contacts (mandatory), host objects (optional) and auth_code (mandatory).
It can then be managed through domain:update commands.

------------------------
4.2 - update

domain:update commands enables a wide range of fields updates

------------------------
4.2.1 - technical update

Part of the fields of the update enables to update technical configuration. It enables nameserver, IP address, and dnssec options management. It is also used to remove a technical configuration..

The state of the domain name is REGISTERED if no host objects have been filled or have been removed.
The state of the domain name is ACTIVE if host objects have been filled.
The state of the domain name can exceptionally be PENDING during the operation if a technical issue makes it asynchronous.

------------------------
4.2.2 - administrative update

It is used to freely modify the various contacts linked with the domain name : administrative, technical, billing, and registrant contact.
The state of the domain name is not modified if only these fields are used.
The state of the domain name can exceptionally be PENDING during the operation if a technical issue makes it asynchronous.

------------------------
4.2.3 - context update

It is used by the client to modify status of the domain name and⁄or to modify the auth-info code linked with the domain name.
The status that can be changed are the following : clientHold, clientTransferProhibited, clientUpdateProhibited, clientDeleteProhibited, clientRenewProhibited.
The clientHold flag enables to remove the domain name from publication temporarily without deleting its technical configuration.
The other client*Prohibited statuses prevent the corresponding operation to be used.
The state of the domain name is REGISTERED if status is updated to clientHOLD.
The state of the domain name is LOCKED if status is updated to clientTransferProhibited.
The state of the domain name can exceptionally be PENDING during the operation if a technical issue makes it asynchronous.

------------------------
4.3 - delete⁄restore

Deletion can be used only by the registrar in charge of the domain name. It brings the domain name in Redemption grace period for a period of 30 days. It can be restored at any time during this period without any changes to the data. Deletion remove the domain name from the DNS publication service.
The state of the domain name is DELETED during redemption period.
The redemption period lasts 30 days. The domain is destroyed at the end of this period and a notification is sent.

------------------------
5 - Transfer

The transfer is described below without explanation of transfer grace period. The behavior of transfer grace period is described in chapter 7.

A transfer can be initiated only by an incoming registrar and using the auth_info that the owner has given him. This standard mechanism acts as a security and associates the triggering of transfer to the acceptance of the owner of the domain.
The transfer operation can be triggered only if the domain is not protected by a clientTransferProhibited lock.

[see attached diagram Q27_5_transfer_lifecycle.pdf]
Diagram : Transfer lifecycle
Description : Transfer operation includes various steps with impact on both outgoing and incoming registrars.

The outgoing registrar receive a transfer notification and can technically accept or reject the registrar change. Rejection can only be done in specific cases described in ICANN consensus policies.
If the outgoing registrar accepts the transfer, the operation is accepted immediately.
If the outgoing registrar does not validate the transfer, the operation is automatically accepted after 5 days.
If the outgoing registrar rejects the transfer, the operation is automatically cancelled and both registrars are notified of the rejection.
When the transfer succeeds, both registrars are notified through their EPP notification queue.

A reverse transfer can be asked by the losing registrar. The documents and cases where this cancellation of the transfer can be asked follow ICANN consensus policies on transfers. In case of disputes, the ICANN TDRP (Registrar Transfer Dispute Resolution Policy) is followed.

The state of the domain name is PENDING during the operation.

------------------------
6 - Renewal and auto-renewal

Domain:renew command is used by the registrar to increase the period of registration. If a domain name is registered for less than 10 years it can be renewed for a period up to 10 years at any time. The expiry date is updated.
The domain:renew command can be sent at any phase of the lifecycle (exception of add grace period is described in next chapter).

The registry lifecycle works with auto-renewal mechanisms. If a registrar do not renew or delete the name when it reaches the expiration date, a one year auto-renew period is added. As for other commands, a grace period is linked with this action (see chapter 7)

[see attached diagram Q27_6_grace_period_renew_autorenew_lifecycle.pdf]
Diagram : Grace Period renew⁄autorenew lifecycle
Description : This renew⁄autorenew lifecycle sum up impact of operations on domain name availability and statuses.

------------------------
7 - Grace period and refund

= Grace period =

The Grace Period mechanism refers to a specified period following an operation or change of status in which the operation may be reversed and a credit may be issued to the Registrar.

= Redemption Grace Period =

The Redemption Grace Period has been described in the delete⁄restore chapter.
During this period, domain name is still registered and can be reactivated through domain:restore command. No specific refund is linked with this period.

= Create - Add Grace Period (AGP) =

The implemented AGP is a five-day period following the domain:create command of a domain name.
The Registrar may delete the domain name at any time during this period and receive a full credit for the registration fee from the Operator. Once a domain name is deleted by the registry at this stage, it is immediately available for registration by any registrant through any Registrar.

= Auto-renew Grace Period =

The auto-renew add grace period is implemented. If during this 45 days period the domain is deleted by the incoming registrar, the ʹdomain:renewʹ command is refunded.

= Renew Grace Period =

The renew grace period is implemented. If during the 5 days period following explicit renew bye the registrar, the domain name is deleted, the renew is then refunded.

= Transfer Grace Period =

The transfer grace period is implemented. If during the 5 days period following a transfer the domain is deleted, the transfer is then refunded.

= AGP Limits Policy =

If too many deletions take place during the AGP from a given registrars, a financial penalty is applied.
The Add Grace Period Limits Policy allows a registrarʹs account to be debited each month for all AGP deletions that exceed the greater of either:
* 50 domain names, or
* 10% of net new adds for the previous month

------------------------
8 - Resources allocated

Four categories of profiles are needed to run the Registry’s Technical Operations : Registry Operations Specialists (I), Registry Systems Administrators (II), Registry Software Developer (III) and Registry Expert Engineers (IV). These categories, skillset and global availability of resources have been detailed in Question 31 (Technical Overview of Proposed Registry). Specific workload for this question is detailed below.

------------------------
8.1 - Initial implementation

The set up of a precise lifecycle implies actions by developers, assisted by a senior staff member expert in internet technologies and RFCs to apply proper configuration for the given TLD. Compliance is strictly tested.

The initial implementation effort is estimated as follows :

Software Developer 0.20 man.day
Software Engineer 0.20 man.day

------------------------
8.2 - On-going maintenance

On-going maintenance on the lifecycle includes mainly integration of new policy rules.
The on-going maintenance effort per year is estimated as follows, on a yearly basis :

Software Developer 0.20 man.day
Software Engineer 0.20 man.day

Abusive registration and other activities that have a negative impact on Internet users

1. Overview
2. Definitions of what constitutes abuse in the TLD
3. Whois Abuse Prevention Policies
3.1 Whois Accuracy
3.1.1 Syntactic and semantic registration constraints
3.1.2 Verification tools
3.1.3 Whois Data Reminder Policy (WDRP)
3.2 Protection against potential abusive use of Whois service
3.2.1 Protection against Data Mining
3.2.1.1 Captcha
3.2.1.2 Rate-limiting
3.2.2 Prevention of Unauthorized data modification
4. Prevention from other abusive conducts
4.1 DNSSEC (cache poisoning)
4.2 Domain name Sniping (grabbing)
4.3 Domain name tasting
5. Disposal of Orphan Glue Records
6. Complaints Point of Contact
7. Policies for handling complaints regarding abuse
7.1 Abuse case response
7.2 Rapid Takedown Policy for Cases of General Malicious Activity
7.3 Rapid Takedown Policy for Cases of Phishing
7.4 Trademark abuse
8. Resourcing Plans

1. Overview

Our objective in answering Question 28 is to provide a thorough explanation of our policies and procedures to minimize abuse registration and other activities that have a negative impact on Internet users.

Protection of Internet users is a core value of the project and is key to insure the user experience as described in question 18 (b) iii. By implementing anti-abuse policy the registry will also contribute and protect the integrity, security and stability of the DNS.

In its online presentation of Registration Abuse Policy (RAP - available at http:⁄⁄www.icann.org⁄en⁄resources⁄policy⁄background⁄rap), ICANN offers the following definition:

“In general, the term covers a broad variety of illegal or illegitimate behaviors considered contrary to the intent and design of normal domain registration processes. Registration abuse often involves malicious actors trying to register in ways that avoid lawful authorities or conceal a registrantʹs identity. Registration abuse can also enable other kinds of abuses, such as phishing and spam.”

The .mutuelle registry is committed to create and implement policies and procedures that prevent abusive registrations and other activities that have a negative impact on Internet users. According to the industry best practices presented in the Registration Abuse Policies Issues Report (ICANN 2008), the .mutuelle registry will offer a wide range of effective safeguards to prevent abusive uses of domain names, in particular phishing, spamming, and other unlawful or fraudulent actions. The Registry Operator will regularly update these policies and procedures in order to maximize its readiness to deal with new threats at all levels and new forms of abuse.

For that purpose, the .mutuelle registry will implement policies in order to prevent, mitigate and resolve abusive behavior in the .mutuelle TLD.

Prevention starts at the time of registration.

The first measure that will be implemented by Fédération Nationale de la Mutualité Française, considering the fact that the .mutuelle extension will be a single-registrant TLD, is to restrict the creation of contacts and the registration of domain names that are not verified by Fédération Nationale de la Mutualité Française. In the opinion of Fédération Nationale de la Mutualité Française, this will already prevent any abusive behavior in connection with domain names that have been registered in the .mutuelle TLD, since all governance and oversight over the operation of the .mutuelle gTLD will be centralized with Fédération Nationale de la Mutualité Française.

Secondly, Fédération Nationale de la Mutualité Française will implement processes in order to guarantee the accuracy of the information contained in the Whois (2). The following answer describes in details the mechanisms in place to maximize Whois accuracy. Others mechanisms (3) will be implemented and described here, including management of orphan glue records (4).

In addition to strong preventive measure against various forms of abuse, .mutuelle will implement mitigation policies to address cases of abuse that may occur. This answer will describe these mitigation measures in detail: Complaints point of contact (5), complaint handling policy and takedown procedures (6).

Resources allocated to handle prevention and mitigation (7) will be described at the end of this answer.

2. Definitions of what constitutes abuse in the .mutuelle TLD (based on the “Domain Name Anti-Abuse Policy” of PIR ⁄ http:⁄⁄www.pir.org⁄why⁄anti_abuse_policy)

*Spam*: The use of electronic messaging systems to send unsolicited bulk messages. The term applies to e-mail spam and similar abuses such as instant messaging spam, mobile messaging spam, and the spamming of Web sites and Internet forums. An example, for purposes of illustration, would be the use of email in denial-of-service attacks;

*Phishing*: The use of counterfeit Web pages that are designed to trick recipients into divulging sensitive data such as usernames, passwords, or financial data;

*Pharming*: The redirecting of unknowing users to fraudulent sites or services, typically through DNS hijacking or poisoning;

*Willful distribution of malware*: The dissemination of software designed to infiltrate or damage a computer system without the ownerʹs informed consent. Examples include, without limitation, computer viruses, worms, keyloggers, and trojan horses.

*Fast flux hosting*: Use of fast-flux techniques to disguise the location of Web sites or other Internet services, or to avoid detection and mitigation efforts, or to host illegal activities. Fast-flux techniques use DNS to frequently change the location on the Internet to which the domain name of an Internet host or name server resolves. Fast flux hosting may be used only with prior permission of PIR;

*Botnet command and control*: Services run on a domain name that are used to control a collection of compromised computers or ʺzombies,ʺ or to direct denial-of-service attacks (DDoS attacks);

*Distribution of child pornography*;

*Illegal Access to Other Computers or Networks*: Illegally accessing computers, accounts, or networks belonging to another party, or attempting to penetrate security measures of another individualʹs system (often known as ʺhackingʺ). Also, any activity that might be used as a precursor to an attempted system penetration (e.g., port scan, stealth scan, or other information gathering activity).

*Unlawful content*or any content that contravene public order according to French law and in particular to Law on the Freedom of the Press of 29 July 1881 (crimes against humanity apology⁄promotion or contestation, incitement to discrimination, hatred or violence).

3. Whois Abuse Prevention Policies

3.1 Whois Accuracy

RFC3912 specifies the Whois protocol and explain it as follows:

Whois is a TCP-based transaction-oriented query⁄response protocol that is widely used to provide information services to Internet users. While originally used to provide ʺwhite pagesʺ services and information about registered domain names, current deployments cover a much broader range of information services. The protocol delivers its content in a human-readable format.

Information about registered domain names is very sensitive. A Registry Operator shall insure the accuracy of the registrant contact information, including administrative, technical and billing contact details. In case of malicious or abusive activity, the Whois contact is usually the first and most important source of information. Whois accuracy is therefore a major step to counter malicious conducts. These information may be required by law-enforcement authorities to identify individuals and organizations responsible for domain names.

The .mutuelle registry will make a firm commitment to obtaining true and accurate registration details from each registrant in order to maintain a consistent Whois accuracy throughout the registry.

3.1.1 Syntactic and semantic registration constraints:

The .mutuelle registry is firmly committed to run a “thick-registry” with high quality of data. The first step to accuracy is achieved through syntactic and semantic checks which are being carried out at the time of registration of the domain name.

Standard EPP checks: a first set of tests is implemented in compliance with standards :
- RFC 5733, the Extensible Provisioning Protocol (EPP) Contact Mapping, requires contact data to contain a name, a city, a country code and an e-mail address in order to allow or perform a syntactically complete EPP request
- Additional checks: the following syntactic checks are implemented:
- a test to ensure that the domain name has the proper number of labels (which is two for a traditional registry that allows only second level domains to be registered),
- a test to ensure that no hyphens occur in position 3 and 4 of any of the domainʹs U-labels (to protect ʺxn--ʺ and future ACE prefixes),
- a test to disallow hyphens at the beginning or end of the name,
- a test to find ASCII characters which are neither a letter, nor a digit or a hyphen,
- a test to find invalid IDN characters, i.e. characters not contained in any of the support IDN character tables
- a test to validate IP address format using the following scheme :
[1-255](\.[0-255]){3,3}
[a-fA-F0-9:]+(:)?
- a test to validate telephone and mail format using the following scheme (with specific tests for fr numbers):
\+[1-9][0-9]{0,3}[1-9]([\.-]?[0-9])+
\+33[1-9]([\.-]?[0-9]){8}
(([^\s\(\)\[\]\.\\〉〈,;:ʺ@]+(\.[^\s\(\)\[\]\.\\〉〈,;:ʺ@]+)*)|(ʺ[^ʺ@\\\r\n]+ʺ))@(\.)*

Additional checks: the following semantic checks are implemented :
- a test to disallow reserved names if authorisation code is not present
- a test to disallow registry reserved names if authorisation code is not present
- a test to disallow ICANN reserved names
- a test to disallow otherwise reserved or unsuitable names, and
- a test to ensure that at least one address element is given

3.1.2 Verification tools

This verification procedure is designed to guarantee the reliability and the accuracy of the Whois database.

The .mutuelle registry will conduct Whois accuracy verification for compliance with criteria concerning the reliability of registrants identification: the registry will verify whether the information provided by the registrant when registering the domain name contains inaccurate or false information about the registrantʹs identity.

Those verifications will be carried out on a random basis or following a third-party request with the Complaints Point of Contact.

The registry may be led to ask registrars (or registrants) for additional information or documents, including the production of documentary evidence of compliance with the reliability of the data provided by the registrant if the registry is in possession of documentary evidence to the contrary (mail returned marked “Not Known at This Address”, bailiff’s report, unidentifiable address, etc.).

A domain name may be blocked under the following circumstances: when a check of the identification data provided by the registrant shows that it is inaccurate or that the registrant appears not to be eligible to register domain names in the .mutuelle TLD in accordance with the policies that have been set by Fédération Nationale de la Mutualité Française.

If the investigation that is carried out by the Complaints Point of Contact shows that the registrant is not compliant with such registration policies, the Registry Operator (by way of the Complaints Point of Contact) shall be entitled to outright delete such domain name and, as the case may be, put such domain name on a blocked list. However, the deletion of a domain name can only occur after the registrant has been formally asked to rectify the situation and to modify its registration data to comply with eligibility criteria.

During the redemption period, the domain name can be reactivated with the same configuration. Once deleted, the domain name will become available again, unless permanently blocked by the Registry Operator.

3.1.3 Whois Data Reminder Policy (WDRP)

In 2003, ICANN adopted the ʺWhois Data Reminder Policyʺ (WDRP, http:⁄⁄www.icann.org⁄en⁄registrars⁄wdrp.htm) which obliges ICANN-accredited registrars to send yearly Whois data reminder notices to registrants. These notices contain the Whois data currently on file for the respective domain, as well as instructions for the registrant about ways to correct the data if required. While the .TLD Registry does not intend to replicate this reminder procedure on the registry level, the .mutuelle TLD will require that ICANN accredited registrar comply with WDRP.

3.2 Protection against unfair use of Whois service

As stated above, Whois Service gives access to sensitive data, including contact details of registrants. The .mutuelle registry is committed to insure the protection of these data against abusive behaviors. Firstly, the .mutuelle registry will implement technical measures to prevent data mining on the Whois, such as automated collection of registrants’ email addresses, which may on their turn be used by third parties for the purposes of spamming. Secondly, the .mutuelle registry and its registry backend service provider, AFNIC, will deploy all necessary means to secure access to its database, specifically by implementing procedures in order to prevent Unauthorized Data Modifications. These procedures will reinforce the security of both EPP and Web-based access to Whois data.

3.2.1 Protection against Data Mining

The .mutuelle registry database user commits to using the published data according to the laws and regulations in effect. Besides, the user shall respect the provisions of the French Data Protection Acts. Violation of this act carries criminal penalties.

As the user is accessing personal data, he must refrain from any collection, misuse or any act that could lead to invasion of privacy or damaging the reputation of individuals.

The Registry can at any time filter the access to its services in case of malevolent use suspicions.

3.2.1.1 Captcha: users shall pass a Captcha before access is granted to the web based RDDS.

3.2.1.2 Rate-limiting: The registry has chosen limitation measures for the number of requests in order to prevent abuse in the use of personal data and to guarantee the quality of the service.
By a transparent parameter adjustment policy, the registry guarantees quality of service to the punctual users and professionals. The rates and thresholds of this system are described in the registry use case of question Q26.

3.2.1.3 White list: The white list mechanism offers specific access for registrars to the port 43 Whois, considering that the incoming traffic must come from two pre-defined IP address. This white list access offers higher thresholds of rate limiting for the users.

3.2.2 Prevention of Unauthorized data modification

Data modification is managed through strict authentication and access policies:
- SSL⁄TLS protocol is used on all interfaces with clients (both EPP and web based SRS).
- a password policy is applied both on the password itself (minimum length, mandatory digits and non-alphanumerical characters), and on the validity term of the password
- use of an SSL client certificate pre-installed by the registry for EPP access.
- IP authentication is limited to two addresses.

The .mutuelle registry backend service provider, AFNIC, will share its experience in the .fr with a view to ensuring effective, timely and sufficient Domain Data Access Control.

4 Prevention from other abusive conducts

4.1 DNSSEC (cache poisoning):

One of the main authentication issue encountered on the DNS is cache poisoning issue. This directly affects DNS data integrity without the attacker having to corrupt or modify data in the registry database.

The answer to this issue is implementation and deployment of DNSSEC. The Registry Operator already successfully manages DNSSEC-enabled zones: on September, 29th 2010, the .mutuelle registry back-end service provider, AFNIC, finished adding its 6 ccTLDs key materials (DS records) into the IANA root zone, ending with .FR after extensive tests with its other TLDs. Since then, related DNSSEC operations and monitoring are spread inside the organization, alongside all other standard day-to-day operations, so that DNSSEC is a core service enabled by default.

4.2 Domain name Sniping (grabbing):

Domain name sniping refers to the practice of trying to re-register potentially interesting domain names immediately after they are deleted.

The .mutuelle Registry Operator supports the Redemption Grace Period as proposed by ICANN and implements it in full compliance with RFC 3915 (ʺDomain Registry Grace Period Mapping for the Extensible Provisioning Protocol (EPP)ʺ). This greatly reduces the possibility of a domain name being “forgotten” by its registrant.

4.3 Domain name tasting:
Domain name testing is a practice using the 5-days Add Grace Period (AGP) during which a newly created domain name may be deleted with a refund of the domain fee to check if the domain name is of interest or not. Also for the .mutuelle gTLD, the AGP is will be implemented; however, considering the fact that the .mutuelle gTLD is intended to be a single registrant-TLD, the chances that this process will be effectively used is rather limited, although the AGP is common practice and corresponds to the policies of almost all existing generic top-level domains.

In 2008, ICANN introduced the ʺAGP Limits Policyʺ (http:⁄⁄ www.icann.org⁄en⁄tlds⁄agp-policy-17dec08-en.htm) which addresses these issues resulting from the Add Grace Period. The .mutuelle TLD, will fully implement this policy by restricting Add Grace Period refunds to registrars according to the limits specified by the policy.

The number of operations concerned are included in ICANN reports and related report columns are :
• number of AGP deletes (ʺdomains-deleted-graceʺ)
• number of exemption requests (ʺagp-exemption-requestsʺ)
• number of exemptions granted (ʺagp-exemptions-grantedʺ)
• number of names affected by granted exemption request (ʺagp- exempted-domainsʺ)

5. Disposal of Orphan Glue Records

According to the definition found in the ʺSSAC Comment on the Orphan Glue Records in the Draft Applicant Guidebook”, a glue record becomes an ʺorphanʺ when the delegation point NS record (the ʺparent NS recordʺ) that references is removed while retaining the glue record itself in the zone. Consequently, the glue record becomes ʺorphanedʺ since it no longer has a parent NS record. In such a situation, registrars and registrants usually lose administrative control over the record, and the recordʹs attribution to a certain registrar may become unclear, which makes it a potential vector for abuse.

The glue record policy in effect for the .mutuelle TLD avoids this situation entirely by disallowing orphan glue records altogether. This corresponds to policy #3 mentioned in section 4.3 (page 6) of the SSAC document mentioned above. The technical implementation within the .mutuelle registry and its associated zone generation process ensure this by implementing the following measures :

- Any host object which is a glue record can be created only if the domain name exists and is sponsored by the registrar creating the host;
- A domain name that has subordinate hosts can only be deleted when these hosts have been deleted. If these hosts are used in delegations for other domain names registered in .mutuelle, these delegations have to be removed to delete the host objects before the domain name can be deleted. If the sponsoring registrar of the domain name is unable to remove these delegations (explicit refusal or inactivity from subordinate host’s registrar), a specific request can be submitted with the Registry Operator. Consequently, the Registry Operator will contact the domain name(s) registrar that has been used in order to delegate the host object(s) and ask them to remove these delegations. By default, registrars have 10 days to remove these delegations. Upon expiry of this term, the delegation is not removed, but the Registry Operator will directly deactivate the DNS configuration of the domain name(s) concerned. At the end of the procedure, the Registry Operator will contact the sponsoring registrar and confirm that the host object(s) and the domain name can be deleted.

6. Complaints Point of Contact

To avoid abusive registration practices, the .mutuelle registry will provide Internet users access to a Complaints Point of Contact on its website, where all kinds of abuse of the .mutuelle TLD or domain names registered therein can be reported.

This Complaints Point of Contact includes a contact web interface offering the possibility to internet users to report any abuse concerning a name registered in the .mutuelle registry.

Such contact web interface will be displayed on the registry’s website (phishing, spamming, trademark abuse etc.)

This Complaints Point of Contact will enable a quicker and better management of complaints and resolution of any issues arising. Complaints will be addressed by filling out a form that will be made available on the .mutuelle registry web site.

A dedicated team will be in charge of handling these complaints in a due time. All requests should be acknowledged and processed within one business day. According to the nature of the reported abuse (phishing, spamming, trademark abuse, etc.), an appropriate response and, where possible, even a resolution of the issue will be given by the .mutuelle registry.

Moreover, Internet users will be given access to all necessary information regarding remedies to abusive online conducts on the registry Complaints Point of Contact webpage. The Complaints Point of Contact webpage will also contain links to all the relevant organizations addressing these issues.

7. Policies for handling complaints regarding abuse

7.1 Abuse case response

The Registry Operator will process each complaint within one business day, will take all the necessary steps to offer a satisfying answer to the complainants, and where possible, already provide for a (temporary) solution.

Should immediate action be taken by competent authorities, the .mutuelle registry is committed to alert such authorities without delay. This may concern the following cases (but limited to):

• Court orders
• Inquiries from law enforcement bodies (e.g, OCLCTIC - The Office central de lutte contre la criminalité liée aux technologies de lʹinformation et de la communication is the French Police unit specialized in cybercrime)
• Anti-phishing groups (e.g, CERTs)

7.2 Rapid Takedown Policy for Cases of General Malicious Activity

In addition to the tasks to be assumed by the Complaints Point of Contact for the .mutuelle registry under the Registry Operator Agreement and the relevant Specifications thereof, Fédération Nationale de la Mutualité Française will also allow any third party to contact its Complaints Point of Contact

7.3 Rapid Takedown Policy for Cases of Phishing

In addition to the various tools and processes that have been established in practice, including the use of information contained in mailing lists where malicious activity and in particular phishing have been reported, the Complaints Point of Contact will closely monitor the .mutuelle TLD for abusive behavior, and intervene where necessary.

Furthermore, the Registry Operator will continuously monitor security and anti-phishing feeds, and intervene in the unlikely event that a .mutuelle domain name is used in connection with such abusive behavior, and block or even promptly delete the domain name.

7.4 Trademark abuse

Detailed and complete information will be provided to trademark owners with respect to the safeguards that Fédération Nationale de la Mutualité Française will be implementing for the .mutuelle.

Considering the fact that .mutuelle is intended to be a single registrant-TLD, no opportunities will be provided to third parties to register domain names in the .mutuelle TLD. Depending on the way how the Trademark Clearinghouse will function, Fédération Nationale de la Mutualité Française may provide for the opportunity for brand owners included in the Trademark Clearinghouse to block the domain names for which they hold validated rights from registration.

In addition to the implementation of the Uniform Dispute Resolution Policy, as a Consensus Policy, and the Uniform Rapid Suspension policy set out in the Applicant Guidebook, Fédération Nationale de la Mutualité Française will also allow third parties to file complaints on the basis of trademark rights directly with the Registry Operator’s Complaints Point of Contact, as indicated above.

8. Resourcing Plans

The Complaints Point of Contact will be a sub-department within Fédération Nationale de la Mutualité Française who will review complaints made in connection with the above. This department already deals with complaints on existing Tlds and will therefore be available to manage issues, which, in regards to the policies in place should be very limited. Random verification will also occur.

The .mutuelle back-end registry services provider AFNIC, provides the following resources:

- Initial Implementation : Thanks to the experience and prior investment by its Registry Back-end Service Provider (AFNIC), the .mutuelle Registry already supports the above mentioned technical abuse prevention and mitigation measures. No additional engineering is required for these, nor are additional development resources needed.

- Ongoing maintenance: In support of the Registry Operator’s staff allocated to this function, AFNIC will have specially trained support staff available to assist in the implementation of potential verifications and takedown procedure for the prevention and resolution of potential abuse. Given the scale of the .mutuelle TLD as well as the restrictive nature of its registration policy, we estimate that this would require no more than 5 man days per year of AFNIC anti-abuse support staff.

As has been explained above, the Applicant ⁄ Registry Operator intends the .mutuelle TLD to be a restricted and closely monitored gTLD. These characteristics are mainly inspired by the Applicant’s ⁄ Registry Operator’s desire to protect the reputation of the Fédération Nationale de la Mutualité Française  brand under any circumstances.


1.	Preventing abusive domain name registrations

In order to prevent abusive domain name registrations in the .mutuelle TLD, various steps in the domain name lifecycle will be controlled by the Applicant ⁄ Registry Operator. In order to enable the Applicant ⁄ Registry Operator to do this, it will provide access to a control panel ⁄ portal to key individuals within its organization. By way of this portal, these users can exercise at any time control over the .mutuelle TLD and any and all domain names registered in this extension, and in particular:

-	validate on an ongoing basis the registrant’s eligibility and user rights in order to register domain names in the .mutuelle TLD;
-	validate whether an (about to be) registered domain name in the .mutuelle TLD corresponds to the naming conventions that will be established by the Registry Operator for domain names registered in the .mutuelle TLD;
-	validate contact information associated with registered domain names, in particular these contacts that can exercise control over the domain name itself, the name servers associated with such domain name, etc.;
-	validate specific commands, including create, update and delete commands;
-	approve for some or all domain names any transfer or trade requests, or intervene in the execution of such requests where the Applicant ⁄ Registry Operator suspects that such transfer or trade requests are initiated in bad faith; and
-	review whether the use that is made of a particular domain name corresponds with the Applicant’s ⁄ Registry Operator’s use policy, and suspend domain name registrations or even delete nameservers associated with domain names that are being used in a manner that does not comply with the types of uses that are allowed by the Applicant ⁄ Registry Operator.

Therefore, it is likely that for the term of the Registry Operator Agreement that will be executed between the Applicant and ICANN following award of the .mutuelle TLD by the latter to the Applicant, the Registry Operator will carefully monitor and manage all domain name registrations that are being made in the .mutuelle TLD.

This way, the Applicant ⁄ Registry Operator will put measures in place on a continuous basis whereby, first of all, the rights and legitimate interest of third parties are safeguarded, and, secondly, the reputation and good name of the Fédération Nationale de la Mutualité Française brand will be underlined at all times.


2.	Internal verification and validation processes

One of the most effective safeguards that will be implemented by the Applicant ⁄ Registry Operator will be the screening of every domain name before this domain name gets registered and⁄or entered into the zone file of the .mutuelle TLD.

During any of such screenings, the internal legal and risk management departments of the Applicant ⁄ Registry Operator, will consider the following factors:

1)	the likelihood of trademark infringement if and when such domain name would become registered;
2)	the legitimate interests the Registry Operator or its Affiliates would have when using such domain name. This is in particular relevant if the domain name represents a generic, dictionary word that could be protected as a trademark. 

Given the fact that various Affiliates of the Applicant ⁄ Registry Operator are engaged in the sale ⁄ retail of tens of thousands consumer goods, there is a likelihood that certain companies hold trademark registrations for the generic word relating to any of these goods. 

However, the Applicant ⁄ Registry Operator will at all times be entitled to invoke that it is making fair use of such domain name insofar and to the extent any such use is merely descriptive and relates to the offering of any such goods to consumers.

3)	any potential harm being done to trademark owners when registering and using a particular domain name in the .mutuelle TLD, and the benefit such domain name would have for the Applicant ⁄ Registry Operator or its Affiliates.

Furthermore, as explained above and in various other sections of this application, the Applicant ⁄ Registry Operator will be screening on an ongoing basis the use that is being made of any domain name registered in the .mutuelle TLD and will implement reasonable measures in order to avoid harm being done to third parties.

Although the above processes will make it extremely unlikely that the Applicant ⁄ Registry Operator will engage or encourage potentially malicious or infringing activities to be carried out under the .mutuelle TLD, these cannot be completely excluded. 

Therefore, in addition to monitor any domain names registered under the .mutuelle TLD and the use that is made of such domain names, the Registry will – in accordance with its domain name registration policies – at all times be entitled to intervene if any such activities have been detected. Measures that can be taken include the suspension, revocation and blocking of any domain name registration and, in general, take any action necessary in order to limit or outright avoid any harm being done to the interests and reputation of third parties, the Registry Operator and its eligible registrants.


3.	Sunrise

When relevant, the Applicant ⁄ Registry Operator will implement a Sunrise process, whereby holders of certain trademarks will be entitled to safeguard the domain names that are identical (or even confusingly similar) to the name(s) to which they hold rights.

However, as mentioned in response to Question 18 of this application, the .mutuelle TLD is at least initially intended to be a single registrant-TLD, where only the Applicant ⁄ Registry Operator (or its Affiliates) will be entitled to register domain names. Now, Applicant ⁄ Registry Operator has no interest whatsoever to register any domain name on which it has no legitimate interest and⁄or that is useful for the day-to-day business activities of the eligible registrants within the TLD.

Therefore, the Applicant expects that the net effect of the operation of the .mutuelle TLD, and whether or not a Sunrise process is being introduced or not, will be the same.

However, the Applicant – being a member of a group of companies that hold various highly reputable brands – sees a benefit for introducing such Sunrise process at a specific point in time, albeit with the sole purpose of putting other brand owners at ease.

Such process would therefore most probably include providing the opportunity to other brand owners – unrelated to the Applicant or the group of companies of which the Applicant is an Affiliate – to block names to which such brand owners have rights, as demonstrated by the Trademark Clearinghouse.

Applicant’s ⁄ Registry Operator’s back-end registry operator has significant experience in managing Sunrise processes. In particular, various key staff members were heavily involved in designing and implementing Sunrise processes that preceded the launch of the .EU ccTLD, which is generally considered the most successful Sunrise process that has ever been implemented. 

At the time of submitting this application, the back-end registry operator is involved in the implementation of the Sunrise process for the .SX TLD.

Furthermore, some of these staff members have been involved in the design and development of the ClearingHouse for Intellectual Property (www.ipclearinghouse.org), a trademark clearinghouse that has been used by various ccTLDs and gTLDs in order to manage their start-up processes. Therefore, the Applicant ⁄ Registry Operator can rely on significant experience and expertise in order to deploy these processes in an efficient and swift manner.


4.	Trademark Claims

The Applicant ⁄ Registry Operator will support ICANN’s Trademark Claims process. Depending 

Similar processes have been put in place by various staff members of the Applicant’s back-end registry operator, so also here the Applicant can bow on significant and hands-on experience in handling these types of processes.


5.	Complaints Point of Contact

As is the case for various other processes and proceedings whereby third parties’ interests can be harmed, the Complaints Point of Contact that will be put in place by the Applicant ⁄ Registry Operator will also here play a pivotal role.

Any party claiming that his trademark(s) are infringed due to the registration and use of a domain name in the .mutuelle TLD is able to file a complaint before the Complaints Point of Contact of the Applicant ⁄ Registry Operator. Filing these complaints will be free of charge. The Complaints Point of Contact will generally provide a written response or even resolution of the matter within 2 business days following the receipt of the complaint. 

Within this timeframe, the Complaints Point of Contact will investigate the complaint, and carry out ex officio investigations. As mentioned previously, the Complaints Point of Contact is entitled to suspend domain name registrations, delete nameservers associated with infringing domain name registrations, or even outright revoke and block domain names from further registration if the Complaints Point of Contact is of the opinion that such domain name potentially infringes the rights of a third party, that no legitimate use is being made by the registrant of such domain name, and that there is bad faith involved.

It is the true desire of the Applicant ⁄ Registry Operator to have potential issues resolved by the Complaints Point of Contact, this in order to avoid costly litigation.


6.	UDRP and URS

The Applicant ⁄ Registry Operator will implement all domain name dispute resolution policies designed by ICANN, including but not limited to those described in Consensus Policies and the Applicant Guidebook.

In this respect, the Applicant ⁄ Registry Operator will put any registered domain name on hold following receipt of a notification from the Uniform Dispute Resolution Policy or the Uniform Rapid Suspension Policy dispute resolution service provider that a complaint under such policies have been received.

Furthermore, it will implement decisions rendered by such dispute resolution service providers, however taking into account at all times that eligibility restrictions may be in force for domain name registrations made in the .mutuelle TLD. 

This could entail that the only remedy available to a third party that is not entitled by the Applicant ⁄ Registry Operator to register domain names in the .mutuelle TLD will be the revocation ⁄ deletion of the domain name. In order to ensure maximum compliance with any such decision, the Applicant ⁄ Registry Operator will put such domain name on a blocked list (i.e. make this domain name unavailable for further registration) insofar and to the extent the UDRP ⁄ URS dispute resolution service provider was of the opinion that the domain name registered by any party other than the Registry Operator or its Affiliates met the requirements set out in the UDRP or URS.

Domain Name System Security Extensions (DNSSEC)

As highlighted in answer to question 28, the .mutuelle registry back-end service provider completed the development of DNSSEC. This system was put in place to ensure the security of domain names by activating an authentication chain. In this way, all registrars will be able to use their automated EPP to communicate signature elements concerning domain names to AFNIC.  As a result, the authentication chain will be secured.  More specifically, this system, will prevent attacks aimed at capturing and diverting queries without users realizing it, thus avoiding the risk that users may disclose personal data in the belief that they are on the legitimate site of the attack victim (cache poisoning). AFNIC will deploy its experience of DNSSEC within .mutuelle.

Table of Contents

1 - Background
2 - Organization of security
2.1 - The place of Security in AFNIC’s processes:
2.2 - Security Coordination
2.3 - Assignment of responsibilities
2.3.1 - Organizational chain of responsibility
2.3.2 - Relations with the authorities and groups of specialists
2.4 - Independent security review
2.5 - Relations with third parties
2.5.1 - Risk Management
2.5.2 - Security of sensitive areas
2.5.3 - Sensitive external sites
2.5.4 - Security assurances for domain name registrants
3 - Registry Asset Management
3.1 - Responsibilities for Registry assets
3.1.1 - Inventory of assets
3.1.2 - Qualification of support assets
3.1.3 - Ownership of assets
3.1.4 - Good and fair use of assets
3.2 - Guidelines for the classification of information
4 - Security related to human resources
4.1 - Roles and Responsibilities
4.2 - Background checks conducted on security personnel
5 - Physical and environmental security
5.1 - Secure areas
5.2 - Hardware security
6 - Operations Management and Telecommunications
6.1 - Procedures and responsibilities related to operations
6.2 - Scheduling and acceptance testing of the system
6.3 - Protection against malicious and mobile code
6.4 - Back-up
6.5 - Security management of network services
6.6 - Monitoring operation of the System
7 - Access Control
7.1 - Business requirements for access control
7.2 - Control of network access
7.3 - Control of access to operating systems
8 - Acquisition, development and maintenance of information systems
8.1 - Cryptographic measures
8.2 - Management of technical vulnerabilities
9 - Managing incidents related to information security
9.1 - Managing improvement and incidents related to information security
10 - IT Disaster Recovery Plan
11 - Integrating audits of the information system

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1 - Background

The security policy is designed to ensure proper management of the risks that may significantly impact the services provided, the contexts in which they are implemented, and the key personnel involved in operating the Registry. It also defines security level for the scalability ⁄ responsiveness to security incidents, the Registry Data integrity and the confidentiality of personal data of domain name owners.

The Information Security Policy is reviewed at least once a year.

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2 - Organization of security

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2.1 - The place of Security in AFNIC’s processes:

AFNIC has set up a Quality Management System (QMS) following the European Framework for QUality Management (EFQM) excellence model. It describes AFNIC’s activities as a series of business processes. Security Process called “ENSURE SECURITY AND BUSINESS CONTINUITY” is one of the cross-business-processes supporting process. It is designed to be compliant with the ISO 27001 norm.
Ensuring security and business continuity mainly consists in defining and controlling how to :
* Supervise the governance of security,
* Apply security measures into the concerned operational fields,
* Manage the risks that could negatively impact the Registries operations.

The implementation of the AFNICʹs ISMS (Information Security Management System) is performed in the framework of the Security process with a view to obtaining ISO 27001 certification by 2014.

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2.2 - Security Coordination

The overall responsibility for security rests with the CEO. He is assisted in this role by the AFNIC Security Manager (ASM).

Strategic supervision is ensured in a concerted manner by the AFNIC Security Council (ASC) chaired by the AFNIC CEO. The purpose of the ASC is to assist and ensure that the conditions are conducive to attaining the security objectives that fall within the scope of the current strategy.

The ASC further supports the development of security practices at AFNIC through the supporting of operation business functions in implementing security policies, business continuity plans, and staff awareness activities. In carrying out its assignment, the ASC may refer at any time to the Executive Management for advice or a decision on the security of AFNIC and TLD.

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2.3 - Assignment of responsibilities

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2.3.1 - Organizational chain of responsibility

The application of security measures to the SRS, DNS, Whois, and other Information Systems is the responsibility of the CTO (head of the Information Systems Division).
The implementation of security measures for staff and premises is the responsibility of the CFO.
The implementation of security measures with respect to legal obligations and registry policies is the responsibility of the Registryʹs Legal Affairs and Policies Director.
The application of security measures relating to damage to the Registryʹs image is the responsibility of the Marketing and Innovation Director.
All the collaborators must be aware of their responsibility concerning the security of resources and information they are accessing, manipulating, publishing.

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2.3.2 - Relations with the authorities and groups of specialists

AFNIC has an agreement with the French National Agency for the Security of Information Systems (ANSSI). Against this background, the two structures cooperate on security issues that may affect AFNIC services related to its Internet business and risk management in this area.
They cooperate within the framework of two programs on the resilience of the Internet in France :
* Cooperation between the operators of vitals infrastructures in order to improve their capacity to respond to major crises affecting several operators at the same time: the Internet critical services (IP Routing and DNS) are now included in the nomenclature;
* Cooperation to assess the resilience of the French .fr TLD and more generally all the TLDs operated by AFNIC for use by the public.

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2.4 - Independent security review

Security audits must be conducted by independent organizations twice a year on global and ⁄ or specific issues related to security.

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2.5 - Relations with third parties

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2.5.1 - Risk Management

Risk studies are conducted using the EBIOS methodology (Expression of Business needs and Identification of Security Objectives, in French). This method was designed in 1995 by the French National Agency for Information Security. It is currently used to identify the worst-case scenarios that could affect registry activity. That leads Afnic to design and apply mitigation measures to enhance the protection against these worst-case scenarios.

The control of the effectiveness and efficiency of mitigation measures is performed by the AFNIC’s Security Council all along the year.

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2.5.2 - Security of sensitive areas

All sensitive areas are under control. That means that access must be controlled and could be restricted to authorized personnel only.
Co-contractors may be requested to sign a confidentiality agreement if required by the sensitivity of information and data they need to know and⁄or use. They only have access to critical technical facilities if accompanied, and never work on production systems.

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2.5.3 - Sensitive external sites

All security must be applied to protect AFNIC’s resources on external sites. That can be made by private zones and access control to them managed by AFNIC itself.

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2.5.4 - Security assurances for domain name registrants

The Registry guarantees the following for registrants :
* The continuous availability of operations on its portfolio of domain names, in accordance with the SLA on the SRS
* The continuous availability of information related to the domain, on condition that the registrant uses the services provided to carry out the operations in question,
* The confidentiality of the registrantsʹ personal data (except where other special conditions apply related to the policy of the registry)
* The confidentiality of non-public data relating to the domain and ⁄ or its portfolio of domain names,
* The confidentiality of the transactions with the Registryʹs system,
* The integrity of the information related to its domain name,and published in the WHOIS and the DNS.

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3 - Registry Asset Management

The security of the registryʹs assets is ensured by the staff assigned to the registryʹs production operations and management activities.
Considering the network connectivity provided by third party, AFNIC’s property begins at the service delivery point.

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3.1 - Responsibilities for Registry assets

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3.1.1 - Inventory of assets

Assets used in the run of critical services are identified, qualified, and managed under the guidance of the present policy. Assets considered are staff, infrastructure, software, connectivity, data and providers.

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3.1.2 - Qualification of support assets

The assets contributing to the Services are classified in 3 main categories :
* Computer Systems and Telecommunications : Hardware and Software; Communications Channels; Outsourced Services;
* Organizations : Staff; Corporate departments;
* Physical locations for business : Offices; Hosting Datacenters;

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3.1.3 - Ownership of assets

Registry data belong to the Registry owner. They are subject to the rules of the contract with ICANN, plus the applicable legal and ⁄ or legislative rules depending on the context in which the registry is implemented

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3.1.4 - Good and fair use of assets

All the registry operations and services must be used by third party in accordance with the contractual rules defined by the owner and the operator of the TLD.

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3.2 - Guidelines for the classification of information

The data used or produced in the context of the Registry are classified in the 3 following categories :

= Critical information = : it can⁄must be accessed⁄showed only by accredited persons. Disclosure or alteration may result in significant damage but repairable.

= Reserved information = : Information is limited to persons, entities or authorized partners. Disclosure or alteration may result in significant harm.

= Internal Information = : Information is available to staff of AFNIC and authorized partners. Disclosure or alteration may perturb the normal functioning of the company, without lasting consequence.

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4 - Security related to human resources

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4.1 - Roles and Responsibilities

There are 2 categories of staff :

* Technical staff : These personnel have access to resources according to defined rights.
* Administrators in charge of administering production resources. They can access all the production resources and data.
* Technicians in charge of the operation, maintenance and monitoring of the production system. They have limited rights of access to production resources. They can access certain resources on request and when accompanied by an administrator.
* Experts in charge of the design and development of production resources. They only have access to the production resources on request and when accompanied by a technician and ⁄ or an administrator.
* Non-technical staff :
* Administrative staff and managers (excluding production).

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4.2 - Background checks conducted on security personnel

French law applies to all staff. The contract they sign with their employer contains sufficient provisions in terms of professionalism and ethics for the activity involving the TLD. Same rules are applicable a Data Center level.

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5 - Physical and environmental security

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5.1 - Secure areas

AFNIC production sites are secured at the means of access to them. The DATA CENTER sites must meet the standards of industrial and environmental security compatible with the constraints implied by their activity. The layout of the premises must be such that access is restricted only to authorized personnel at entry points selected and controlled by AFNIC.

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5.2 - Hardware security

The Data centers that host AFNIC services ensure at least Tier 3 levels of resilience.

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6 - Operations Management and Telecommunications

AFNIC controls the operation of all the resources used to deliver essential services with the exception, of course, of outsourced services such as certain DNS servers.
AFNIC operates dark fiber connections between its sites. The terminals are owned by AFNIC. They are operated by AFNIC personnel.

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6.1 - Procedures and responsibilities related to operations

Operating procedures are documented and kept up to date on the intranet of the IT team.
Access to the applications, servers and databases must be defined and kept up to date for each staff member.
Access privileges are defined in order to respect the security rules associated with the classification of information.
Operations related to DNSSEC are subject to even more stringent security regulations and require respecting the DPS procedure.

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6.2 - Scheduling and acceptance testing of the system

The test, pre-production and production phases must be clearly specified. Any production launch must be announced to the registrars at least 2 month before it applies.

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6.3 - Protection against malicious and mobile code

All the entry points to the production servers are filtered by the firewall, which applies the filtering policy common to all the procedures, whether they involve a human operator or an automated process.

Each development must apply security rules and recommendations on the development of application.
The Web access must be protected against the most common (Script kiddies, SQL injection …)

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6.4 - Back-up

Registry data are stored and secured using the real-time replication mechanisms of the production Database Management System (production DBMS).
In addition, a physical backup of the entire database must be performed at the same time as the back-up of the other components of the SRS.
To be compliant with the ICANN requirements, a data escrow deposit must be performed every day between 0:00 am end 12:00pm

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6.5 - Security management of network services

A strict partitioning into zones must be implemented in order to avoid interconnections between the external production, administration and backup networks.

Any internal and external attempts to access production servers must pass through a Firewall. They are recorded in a log file for later analysis. The detection of malicious code based on a regularly updated list must be performed at this level.

An intrusion detections system must be installed and running between firewall and production servers.

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6.6 - Monitoring operation of the System

Automated monitoring must be implemented. It must cover the hardware, software systems and production applications.
Any failure must be subject to a specific alert sent to the staff:
* on duty during office hours;
* on standby outside office hours;

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7 - Access Control

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7.1 - Business requirements for access control

Access to the information system requires prior identification and authentication. The use of shared or anonymous accounts must be avoided. Mechanisms to limit the services, data, and privileges to which the users have access based on their role at AFNIC and the Registry must be implemented wherever possible.

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7.2 - Control of network access

The internal network must be partitioned to isolate the different services and applications and limit the impact of incidents. In particular it is highly desirable to isolate services visible from the outside in a semi-open zone (DMZ). Similarly, access to the wireless network must be controlled and the network must be subject to appropriate encryption.

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7.3 - Control of access to operating systems

The production servers must be confined in secure facilities. Access must be restricted to authorized personnel only. The personnel in question are the members of the operating teams and their managers, IT personnel and those of the Security Manager.

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8 - Acquisition, development and maintenance of information systems

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8.1 - Cryptographic measures

Cryptographic measures must be implemented to secure the exchanges :
* between the workstations of technical staff and the access proxies to production servers;
* between the Registrars and the EPP server;
* between the DNS master servers and the resolution servers;
* to upload the records of the Escrow Agent.

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8.2 - Management of technical vulnerabilities

The technical configuration of hardware and software used must be subject to up to date documentation.
The changes in technical configurations must be constantly monitored and documented.
Security alerts involving updates and ⁄ or patches to production systems must be constantly monitored.
Application procedures must be documented and updated based on the recommendations of the designers of a component.

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9 - Managing incidents related to information security

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9.1 - Managing improvement and incidents related to information security

The crisis management procedure serves to mobilize at a sufficiently high echelon, all the appropriate levels of responsibility for taking decisions on the actions required to resolve the crisis and return to normal.
Each security incident must be analyzed under the cover of the Security Council and the recommendations, if any, are applied, checked and evaluated as required by the QMS.

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10 - IT Disaster Recovery Plan

The risk analysis must produce some inputs for the elaboration of a disaster recovery plan. That plan has to be established and regularly tested in order to maintain or recover Registry activity and make critical services available at the required SLA after an interruption or a crash of critical services of the Registry.

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11 - Integrating audits of the information system

Security audits are performed annually. They are launched on the initiative of the CTO or upon request from the ASC. They are carried out by independent bodies and relate to one or more of the essentials services of the Registry.

The ASC and the ASM control the implementation and the efficiency of these measures in the framework of S3 process (see section 2.1).

Etienne Caniard	Chairman
Jean-Philippe Huchet	General Secretary
Patrick Brothier	Treasurer General
Thierry Beaudet	Vice President

New gTLD Application Submitted to ICANN by: Fédération Nationale de la Mutualité Française

String: MUTUELLE

Originally Posted: 13 June 2012

Application ID: 1-1752-85513

Applicant Information

1. Full legal name

2. Address of the principal place of business

3. Phone number

4. Fax number

5. If applicable, website or URL

Primary Contact

6(a). Name

6(b). Title

6(c). Address

6(d). Phone Number

6(e). Fax Number

6(f). Email Address

Secondary Contact

7(a). Name

7(b). Title

7(c). Address

7(d). Phone Number

7(e). Fax Number

7(f). Email Address

Proof of Legal Establishment

8(a). Legal form of the Applicant

8(b). State the specific national or other jursidiction that defines the type of entity identified in 8(a).

8(c). Attach evidence of the applicant's establishment.

9(a). If applying company is publicly traded, provide the exchange and symbol.

9(b). If the applying entity is a subsidiary, provide the parent company.

9(c). If the applying entity is a joint venture, list all joint venture partners.

Applicant Background

11(a). Name(s) and position(s) of all directors

11(b). Name(s) and position(s) of all officers and partners

11(c). Name(s) and position(s) of all shareholders holding at least 15% of shares

11(d). For an applying entity that does not have directors, officers, partners, or shareholders: Name(s) and position(s) of all individuals having legal or executive responsibility

Applied-for gTLD string

13. Provide the applied-for gTLD string. If an IDN, provide the U-label.

14(a). If an IDN, provide the A-label (beginning with "xn--").

14(b). If an IDN, provide the meaning or restatement of the string in English, that is, a description of the literal meaning of the string in the opinion of the applicant.

14(c). If an IDN, provide the language of the label (in English).

14(c). If an IDN, provide the language of the label (as referenced by ISO-639-1).

14(d). If an IDN, provide the script of the label (in English).

14(d). If an IDN, provide the script of the label (as referenced by ISO 15924).

14(e). If an IDN, list all code points contained in the U-label according to Unicode form.

15(a). If an IDN, Attach IDN Tables for the proposed registry.

15(b). Describe the process used for development of the IDN tables submitted, including consultations and sources used.

15(c). List any variant strings to the applied-for gTLD string according to the relevant IDN tables.

16. Describe the applicant's efforts to ensure that there are no known operational or rendering problems concerning the applied-for gTLD string. If such issues are known, describe steps that will be taken to mitigate these issues in software and other applications.

17. (OPTIONAL) Provide a representation of the label according to the International Phonetic Alphabet (http://www.langsci.ucl.ac.uk/ipa/).

Mission/Purpose

18(a). Describe the mission/purpose of your proposed gTLD.

18(b). How do you expect that your proposed gTLD will benefit registrants, Internet users, and others?

18(c). What operating rules will you adopt to eliminate or minimize social costs?

Community-based Designation

19. Is the application for a community-based TLD?

20(a). Provide the name and full description of the community that the applicant is committing to serve.

20(b). Explain the applicant's relationship to the community identified in 20(a).

20(c). Provide a description of the community-based purpose of the applied-for gTLD.

20(d). Explain the relationship between the applied-for gTLD string and the community identified in 20(a).

20(e). Provide a description of the applicant's intended registration policies in support of the community-based purpose of the applied-for gTLD.

20(f). Attach any written endorsements from institutions/groups representative of the community identified in 20(a).

Geographic Names

21(a). Is the application for a geographic name?

Protection of Geographic Names

22. Describe proposed measures for protection of geographic names at the second and other levels in the applied-for gTLD.

Registry Services

23. Provide name and full description of all the Registry Services to be provided.

Demonstration of Technical & Operational Capability

24. Shared Registration System (SRS) Performance

25. Extensible Provisioning Protocol (EPP)

26. Whois

27. Registration Life Cycle

28. Abuse Prevention and Mitigation

29. Rights Protection Mechanisms

30(a). Security Policy: Summary of the security policy for the proposed registry

© Internet Corporation For Assigned Names and Numbers.