To All, VeriSign GRS will be making several changes to the COM, NET, ORG and EDU zone files. Their format will be modified to reduce the overall file size by removing unnecessary text and extraneous records. Currently the excess information causes an increase in the time required to generate and distribute these files. In the interest of making timely updates and meeting ICANN requirements for file distribution, the following changes will be made: 1. Modify Zone File Format to Reduce Size Using certain directives and shortcuts to replace recurring values will significantly reduce the size of these zone files: - Records will contain unqualified, or relative, domain names whenever possible. The particular zone files origin will be specified with a $ORIGIN directive and should be appended to unqualified domain names per RFC 1035, section 5.1. - The $TTL directive will be used set the default time to live for subsequent records in the zone file per RFC 2308, section 4. Individual records will no longer contain an explicit TTL. - The IN class will be specified in the SOA record but omitted in all subsequent records, since a records class defaults to the previously specified class. See RFC 1035, section 5.1 for more information. These format changes are currently scheduled to be implemented late Q2 2. Eliminate Orphan A Records The current zone generation process publishes A (address) records (also called glue records) regardless of whether the name server is referenced by any NS (name server) records. Put another way, an A record is published even if no zone delegations reference it. These A records are called orphans, and their presence in the COM/NET/ORG zones is undesirable for both administrative and technical reasons The inclusion of these orphan A records can cause problems for administrators of lower-level name servers. Even if the lower-level servers are configured properly, orphan A records in the COM/NET/ORG zones can interfere with normal resolution of lower-level zones and make maintenance (especially changes) difficult and confusing. If the lower-level name servers are configured improperly, the presence of orphan A records may be the only reason that resolution is currently working correctly. Therefore, it is important that all administrators of COM/NET/ORG subzones have the correct information in their zones prior to the removal of orphan A records from the COM/NET/ORG zones. Verisigns proposed resolution for achieving this is as follows: Step 1 (by late February): A report will be generated weekly for each registrar indicating the orphan A records owned by that registrar. VeriSign GRS will also include instructions describing the steps that should be taken to ensure that lower-level name servers are properly configured so that removal of the orphan A records will not cause failures in resolution. Step 2 (by late February): A list of all orphan A records will be posted to the VeriSign GRS web site and will be updated weekly. This list will allow registrants to determine if they might be affected by the elimination of orphan A records from the COM/NET/ORG zones and provide instruction on resolving these issues Step 3 (Currently scheduled for late Q2): Approximately a week before the modification to the zone generation process to remove orphan A records is implemented, another email will be sent out as a reminder with the exact date that the change will occur. Regards, Brad -------------------------------------- Brad Verd Resolution Systems Operations Manager Verisign Global Registry Services Email - bverd@verisign.com ---------------------------------------