Minutes of the Registrar Advisory Group Meeting

Held Thursday 26 May 2005 – Spencer on Byron, Takapuna, North Shore

Present: Tim John, Mark Mackay, Lee Miller, Craig St George, Dave Baker, Nick Griffin, Debbie Monahan

Apologies: Peter Mancer, Peter Mott

An agenda for the meeting was set as follows:

1. SRS Outage on Tuesday 24 May
2. Review of the Service Level Agreement
3. Review of Transfer to Another Registrar policy
4. Implementation of a dispute resolution process for .nz domain names
5. Registrar connection obligations

There was a brief discussion to start regarding elections to the Registrar Advisory Group (RAG) as both Craig St George and Peter Mott will not be able to continue due to a change in circumstances. The DNC explained that elections were due this year and that they would take place, for all positions, around August/September.

With the number of registrars based overseas there is an issue with potentially covering the cost of attendance at meetings of those, should any be voted on. It was agreed that overseas based registrars shouldn’t be prevented from participating on the RAG and that they could join meetings either via teleconference or have a limit put on reimbursement of expenses. The details around this will be finalised and published as part of the election process.

1. SRS Outage on Tuesday 24 May

NZRS outlined that the outage started at 11:47 and lasted for approx 1 hour. It was caused by a hardware fault at the Albany data centre and NZRS were continuing their investigations to the cause of this fault.

The srs.net.nz TTLs were set to 1 hour. One issue that has arisen from the outage is that this is too long for registrars to wait for a switch between sites. NZRS can't lower the TTL of all srs.net.nz answers as WHOIS lookups from the general public would make the load too high. Therefore, actions taken from the outage are to to lower srs1.srs.net.nz TTL to 5 minutes but maintain whois.srs.net.nz TTL at 60 minutes.

Registrars are recommended to use the XML transaction. If they have to use the WHOIS protocol then use srs1 instead of WHOIS as hostname to direct their WHOIS queries at. This means that the impact of such an outage on registrars in future should be minimised.

There was a discussion around the steps taken and also regarding the communication to registrars.

It was proposed that NZRS should look at a way of using the pager notifications they get from the SRS in the case of an outage to provide information to registrars. This need not be details but could be enough to let registrars know that NZRS are aware of the problem and are working on it. This could be put on the ‘registrar only’ part of the NZRS website and would aid early communication with registrars.

2. Review of the Service Level Agreement

NZRS and DNC informed registrars that the Service Level Agreement between NZRS and InternetNZ was about to be reviewed and asked if there was anything registrars would like to see changed from the current version.

Registrars said they had no issue with the response times from the SRS currently and that if the values in the SRS reflected what was happening now that would be acceptable.

There was a discussion around the Action Details Query and how big some queries were that registrars could undertake. Registrars felt that there should still be a SLA standard even if it is ‘soft’. Suggested that the size of the query should be factored into the standard, for example XML of up to a certain size returned within y seconds.

Zone pushes

As part of this item there was a discussion about zone pushes. NZRS currently undertake 6 zone pushes a day, against the SLA standard of two a day. Registrars agreed that 6 should be the minimum and that could be in a revised SLA but they would like to see more.

One aspect of the discussion was the absence of a zone push between 9am and midday so anyone coming into work in the morning and seeing their website down because they hadn’t paid their domain name renewal had to wait till after midday to be back up and running. Registrars expressed their preference to have a mid-morning zone push also.

NZRS commented that they would be happy to do zone pushes more frequently especially since a recent upgrade to the SRS should make it easier to do.
After discussion it was agreed that NZRS would investigate more frequent zone pushes.

Registrars strongly preferred hourly zone pushes as it was easy to know when they would take place and therefore simple to plan to, and to get customers to plan for. It was agreed that prior notice needed to be given before implementing any change as some people plan updates and activities around the times of the zone pushes.

NZRS will advise if they can introduce hourly updates and put it in place if they can, with the appropriate notice. If hourly zone pushes are not feasible at this time, it was agreed that, at a minimum, a 10.30am zone
push should be implemented. NZRS will advise.

Registrar access to web based tool

Originally it was planned to give registrars code allowing them to utilise a web-based tool for SRS access. This was not provided to registrars in the early days of the SRS due to problems with the system. Registrars agreed that it would be useful to do some web-based queries. After discussion it was agreed that access through the ‘registrar only’ part of the NZRS website would work if it was made available there. NZRS will look at this and come back to registrars by the end of June.

3. Transfer to Another Registrar (TAR) – policy review

The DNC announced that a review of the TAR policy would commence shortly and she was keen to get the views of the registrars to incorporate those in the discussion paper that will be released for comment.

There was discussion around the ‘checking’ process used in such registries as .au however registrars felt that it was easy in that situation for an agent or reseller to have their own details in the email field so they ended up receiving the email for confirmation anyway.

All registrars expressed concern about the misuse of UDAIs and how this was an education issue. A number of registrars already send out an explanatory note about what the UDAI is, what it’s used for and the responsibility on registrants to keep it secure.

It was agreed that one of the things to include in the discussion paper was the requirement to include a set phrase when a UDAI is sent out to a registrant. Changes could be made to that but only with the agreement of the DNC, much like the core terms and conditions now.

In respect of the discussion about public education, the DNC explained that printed brochures had been produced that discussed domain names generally and a second one that focuses on the rights and responsibilities on registrant. These brochures are currently being reformatted to enable them to be easily downloaded online. Registrars are able to use the content of the brochures but are asked to credit InternetNZ.

4. Implementation of a dispute resolution process for .nz domain names

The DNC advised registrars that work was beginning on implementing a dispute resolution process for .nz domain names that would be based on the Nominet UK model.

Registrars asked if it was possible to include some sort of guidance to registrars on how to handle issues affecting websites / email services when a domain name is in dispute. How wide does the ‘lock’ on a domain name go and what are registrars able to enforce during the dispute. This will be looked at as part of the implementation.

5. Registrar connection obligations

NZRS outlined an issue they had with a registrar that resulted in the registrar being suspended from the SRS for a 48 hour period.

The behaviour of the registrar included:

• Testing software changes in the production environment. When there was a fault in the software it had an impact on the SRS which is unacceptable. Any software changes should be thoroughly tested in the SRS-Test system
• Continued to submit create transactions for a registered domain name in such volume that it effectively ‘locked’ the name for any transactions. The registrar had been directed to only submit a create transaction after determining the domain name was available for registration. This applied to transactions around the time of the ‘release domains’ job where the system is under heavy load. Despite repeated requests the registrar did not follow directions and his actions had an impact on the production system.

NZRS wants to work with registrars but reserves the right to put the interests of the registry first. The Connection Agreement gives NZRS the right to take action against registrars where the integrity of the SRS is at stake. NZRS only took the action to suspend the registrar following repeated requests to modify behaviour, together with warnings that they would be suspended if the behaviour continued. Registrars will continue to be given the opportunity to comment on any NZRS concerns but should note that, where the activities continue, NZRS will take whatever steps are necessary to protect the SRS.

There was a discussion around the way the SRS processes transactions whilst processing the release domains job. NZRS outlined the way the system
currently operates and there was discussion about options to the single batch-release, including releasing domains on an on-going basis during the day as their 90 days expires. Current directive is that registrars should
check availability of a domain prior to sending a create transaction. NZRS will confirm requirements and advise registrars.

ENDS