News

Results from the annual satisfaction survey of IANA customers show strong support and continued trust in the IANA services.

SOC audits of the key systems used to deliver the IANA functions were completed for the period ending 30 November 2025, including a sixteenth consecutive exception-free audit of the root zone KSK and a second annual SOC 3 report on the Registry Assignment and Maintenance Systems.

IANA has published a new Certificate Authority (CA) certificate for DNSSEC root trust anchor validation. Relying parties validating root-anchors.xml using detached signatures should update their trust anchors.

Comment is invited on the proposal for a DNS Root Key Signing Key (Root KSK) algorithm rollover. The proposal sets out a multi-year implementation plan, beginning with the generation of a new ECDSA Root KSK in 2027 and ending with the retirement of the RSA Root KSK in 2029.

SOC audits of the key systems used to deliver the IANA functions were completed for the period ending 30 November 2024, including a fifteenth consecutive exception-free audit of the root zone KSK and the first SOC 3 report for the Registry Assignment and Maintenance Systems.

PTI's five year strategic plan set out objectives for the next five years for the IANA functions.

The annual independent survey of IANA customers and key stakeholders covering 2024 has been published.

Comment is invited on the draft operating plan and budget for the IANA functions for Fiscal Year 2026.

Comment is invited on the draft strategic plan for the IANA functions for 2026-2030.

We have updated the trust anchor XML to include data elements described in the upcoming RFC 7958bis document. This format adds additional information that may be useful for implementers.

The unicast address block 2410::/12 has been allocated to APNIC based on their eligibility according to the IANA Policy for Allocation of IPv6 Blocks to Regional Internet Registries.

The websites served on the example domains (e.g. example.com, example.net, example.org, and example.edu) no longer support POST, PUT, DELETE, and PATCH requests.

An update to the trust anchors for DNSSEC has been published. This update adds a new key that is planned to be used to sign the DNS root zone starting in 2026.

The findings from our annual SOC2 and SOC3 audits, independently administered by RSM US LLP, have been published.

Our mailing list platform is undergoing major upgrades.

Our annual survey of key stakeholders has been published, providing useful feedback for the ongoing evolution of our services.

The final report of our community study team has been published, providing guidance on how cryptographic algorithm changes to the DNS root zone should be performed in the future.

ICANN has convened the periodical community review of the IANA Naming Functions, which performs an assessment every five years.

IANA has made a provisional determination that “.INTERNAL” should be reserved for private-use and internal network applications. Prior to review and approval of this reservation by the ICANN Board, we are seeking feedback on whether the selection complies with the specified procedure from SAC113, and any other observations that this string would be an inappropriate selection for this purpose.

A draft study on how to select a new cryptographic algorithm for the root zone, and how a rollover to that algorith, has been produced and we are now seeking comment. This study is the product of a community design team.

By the end of this year, the Domain Name System (DNS) root zone will introduce the ZONEMD record that will provide a new mechanism for network operators to validate its contents.

Efforts to rollover to the recently generated new KSK will be paused while replacement hardware options continue to be evaluated.

This section on the website is now available to aggregate operational updates and other updates of interest that we have historically published in different locations.

The b.root-servers.net address is planned for an update in November 2023.

Proposals to update the PTI Bylaws, that govern the IANA functions, are open for public comment. These proposals seek to simplify PTI's planning cycles to better align with ICANN.

The findings from our annual SOC2 and SOC3 audits, independently administered by RSM US LLP, have been published.

RFC 9121 has been published which formalizes the removal of a number of legacy .INT domains by IANA. These domains are no longer in use but were documented for historical, often experimental purposes. This document clarifies earlier documents and should have no practical effect.

Production of the hardware security modules (HSMs) used to store the Root Zone KSK is ceasing. IANA is commencing an initiative to study and identify alternatives, in the meantime the existing hardware is expected to continue to be used for in the coming years.

RFC 9371 has been published which updates the registration procedures for private enterprise numbers (PENs).

The basics of how the IANA functions manage the Time Zone Database, an essential collection of rules that govern time relied upon around the world.

The next Root Zone KSK is planned to be generated at the next key signing ceremony on 27 April 2023.

A Root Zone Algorithm Rollover Study Design Team has been established to develop recommendations on how the cryptographic algorithm used for the root zone may be changed during future rollovers.

The 2022 IANA Customer Engagement Survey has been published. A big shift was in customers' desires for remote engagement, down to 9% from 50% a year prior.

An updated Root Zone Management System is now available. TLD managers have new features available to them in this release, including abilities to customize access and authorization policies.

A significant upgrade to the Root Zone Management System will be performed on 13 December 2022 and customers are encouraged to submit root zone changes in advance of that date.

IANA will operate on a modified schedule at the end-of-year, however all services continue to operate including emergency response.

A significant update has been made to the system that supports private enterprise number (PEN) registrations. A more interactive application and modification process has been implemented, along with a modern interface for browsing registrations.

On 6 December 2022 at 16:00 to 17:00 UTC, you are invited to join a webinar covering the new features in the RZMS upgrade.

ICANN recently announced on open call for volunteers to join a design team that will develop a plan for changing the cryptographic algorithm used for the Domain Name System (DNS) root key signing key and zone signing key. Those who feel they are qualified are welcome to apply.

Comment is invited on the draft operating plan and budget for the IANA functions for Fiscal Year 2024.

In conjunction with the 2022 ICANN DNS Symposium, IANA will be holding a half-day workshop focused on key technical evolution projects within IANA relating to the DNS. Topics will include a discussion of how to perform a DNSSEC algorithm rollover for the DNS root zone, and reviewing and updating the TLD technical requirements for root zone changes. TLD managers, DNS experts, and other interested parties are encouraged to attend.

A webinar, open to all, will explain the annual planning process for the IANA functions and invite contributions on priorities for the coming year.

The final report conducted by independent researchers on the Root Zone Update Process has been published.

Answers to commonly asked questions about our next-generation Root Zone Management System have been published.

IANA is preparing to launch a significant update to its Root Zone Management platform later this year.

The help material for RFC authors, that augments RFC 8126, has been significantly updated.

Comment is invited on the initial report by independent researchers on the Root Zone Update Process. Feedback will be integrated into a subsequent final report.

The findings of our annual customer survey are now available online.

IANA and IETF have collaboratively issued a joint statement concerning copyright in the IANA protocol parameter registries, confirming that they intend that the registries may be freely used by any party for any purpose.

On the 5th anniversary of the transition to multistakeholder oversight of IANA, a review of what has happened since.

The performance reporting section of the IANA website has been significantly updated. Notably there is now a high-level dashboard view of the key metrics used to assess IANA performance, on a rolling 3 month basis.

A new RFC co-authored by IANA staff documents the transition of the .arpa domain onto dedicated nameservers, separating its operations from the root zone infrastructure.

The draft operating plan and budgets for the IANA functions, covering July 2022 to June 2023, is available for public comment.

The signature file that is used to validate the Root Zone Trust Anchor XML distribution is being updated. The updated file is available for preview.

A webinar, open to all, will explain the annual planning process for the IANA functions and invite contributions on priorities for the coming year.

A study is commencing to review operations associated with root zone updates, and identify if improvements are needed to the robustness of the process. This work is being commissioned as part of the follow-up work from the IANA stewardship transition.

Feedback is sought in making a contractual amendment to remove a specific reporting requirement. A community review concluded this requirement is no longer suitable.

The findings of our annual customer survey have been published.

A significant update to the documentation for the Root Zone KSK has been published. In addition to customary updates to the DPS, many supporting procedures and documents are now being published for the first time.

RFC 9120 has been published, describing revisions to operational practices to separate the function of the "arpa" top-level domain in the DNS from its historical operation alongside the DNS root zone.

A report has been published, commissioned by ICANN and Google, that documents the design, evolution and management of the Internet's unique identifiers.

Comment is invited on the draft operating plan and budget for the IANA functions for Fiscal Year 2022.

A webinar, open to all, will explain the annual planning process for the IANA functions and invite contributions on priorities for the coming year.

A discussion of adjustments made to IANA operating procedures for key signing ceremonies, due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Due to the emergence of the Coronavirus pandemic, significant changes are being planned to enable us to conduct forthcoming key signing ceremonies.

The scheduled KSK ceremony has been postponed due to a mechanical failure in the key management facility

The results of the annual customer survey on the IANA functions are now available.

The unicast address block 2630::/12 has been allocated to ARIN based on their eligibility according to the IANA Policy for Allocation of IPv6 Blocks to Regional Internet Registries.

Following the completion of the first Root Zone KSK rollover, we are seeking input on establishing a three-year cadence for future rollovers.

We now offer a new dashboard to reports RIR number resource allocation data. This data, including associated projections, are used to implement the global policies that govern IPv4, IPv6 and autonomous system allocations by IANA.

Comment is invited on a proposal to update the service level agreements associated with ccTLD delegation and transfer requests.

The Customer Standing Committee, ICANN and PTI have agreed a new set of metrics to govern label generation ruleset (LGR) processing, which are now available for public comment.

The unicast address block 2a10::/12 has been allocated to RIPE NCC based on their eligibility according to the IANA Policy for Allocation of IPv6 Blocks to Regional Internet Registries.

The AS Number registry has been simplified to only indicate block allocations made by IANA to the RIRs. It no longer reflects inter-RIR transfers of AS numbers. This change was made at the request of the regional Internet registries.

The unicast address block 2001:2000::/19 has been allocated to RIPE NCC based on their eligibility according to the IANA Policy for Allocation of IPv6 Blocks to Regional Internet Registries. This allocation incorporates earlier smaller allocations of 2001:2000::/20, 2001:3000::/21, and 2001:3800::/22 made on 2004-05-04.

IANA has allocated 2×/24 address space to each to the five regional Internet registries from its recovered pool. This effectively exhausts the address space IANA has to allocate according to the Global Policy for Post Exhaustion IPv4 Allocation Mechanisms by the IANA.

We encourage TLD managers to avoid discretionary root zone changes on 11 October 2018 in light of our intention to change the Root Zone KSK on that date.

We have updated our privacy policies and certain website terms of service to provide greater transparency, promote simplification, and align with recent changes in privacy laws applicable to us.

A summary of the adjustments and changes to the IANA functions in the first year after the IANA stewardship transition.

The findings of the annual IANA customer survey are now available.

TLD managers may now sign their zones with GOST or ECDSA and list their respective delegation signer records in the DNS root zone. Support for the GOST and SHA384 digest types have also been added.

Commencing the week of 2017-10-23, our partner Ebiquity will invite our customers over the past year to participate in our annual survey. This anonymous survey helps us plan for the future by identifying our performance and ways we can improve. It will automatically be sent to those who have transacted requests with us in the past year, along with other key contacts within our community.

The plan to sign the root zone with a new KSK starting in October 2017 has been postponed, in response to freshly analyzed data the suggests more resolvers than expected are signaling they do not yet recognize the new KSK.

As of 2017-09-26, the .INT zone is signed with a secure delegation from the DNS root zone. Support for DS records in the .INT zone will be added at a later date.

We are now publishing the monthly reports ICANN receives from the Root Zone Maintainer. These reports document adherence to the service level agreements between ICANN and Verisign for the performance of this function, which is a component of the Root Zone Management process.

RFC 8126 has been published, providing best current practice for RFC authors on how to develop IANA Considerations in their documents.

For the first time the Root Zone KSK will be changed, and DNS operators should learn about the potential impacts. Operators may need to take specific steps to ensure ongoing DNS functionality.

A new best current practice co-authored by IANA staff updates the guidance for protocol authors on how registries are created and how their assignment policies are specified.

We are seeking interested individuals who wish to act as Trusted Community Representatives. These individuals are an important component of how we manage the Root Zone Key Signing Key, the trust anchor for the global Domain Name System. By inviting recognized members of the DNS technical community to be part of the Root Zone KSK operations, we seek to improve confidence and acceptance in the DNSSEC security mechanism among the wider Internet community.

Adjustments have been made to implement an evergreen process for TCR appointments and rotation. Travel support will now also be provided.

We have published our first report to the Internet numbering community. This report is the first of a regularly monthly reporting on our performance of allocations to Regional Internet Registries, and is one deliverable from the IANA stewardship transition process.

The annual audits of both our Root Zone Key Signing Key (DNSSEC) operations, and our Registry Assignment and Maintenance Systems, have been completed.

Following successful key ceremonies in October 2016 and February 2017, a new key signing key for the DNS root zone has been generated that is expected to be used later in 2017. Software implementing DNSSEC validation should obtain the revised root anchors <https://www.iana.org/dnssec/files> in our repository. This is an important step in the KSK Rollover project <https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/ksk-rollover>.

In September 2016, we invited our customers to participate in our fifth annual customer satisfaction survey. We have now published the compiled results, showing continued very positive satisfaction from our communities. The report describes the methodology and responses received.

We have published our first reports to the newly formed Customer Standing Committee. These reports are the first of regularly monthly reporting to this new committee, which was created as part of the IANA stewardship transition process.

As of 2016-10-01, the IANA functions are being provided by Public Technical Identifiers, a new affiliate of ICANN.

A revised edition of the Root Zone KSK DNSSEC Practice Statement (DPS) has been published, and is effective immediately. The changes primarily relate to operational impacts caused by the IANA stewardship transition.

Following pre-publication since 2016-09-20, the zone signing key used to sign the DNS root zone has been increased in size from 1024 bits to 2048 bits. The key signing key remains at 2048 bits. This work has been coordinated with our root zone management partner, Verisign.

ICANN has engaged Ebiquity to administer its 2016 Annual Customer Survey. If you have made use of IANA request services in the last year you can expect to receive an invitation from Judy Bromley to participate in a survey hosted at https://www.ebiquityinsights.com/.

The validity period of DNSSEC signatures in the Root and ARPA zones has been increased from 10 days to 13 days. This implements part of the recommendations of RSSAC's Report on Root Zone TTLs (aka RSSAC003). This work has been coordinated with our root zone management partner, Verisign.

RFC 7940 has been published, enabled label generation rulesets (formerly known as IDN tables) to be precisely expressed in a machine readable format. This work originated in work by the IANA team on formalizing these rulesets, and is expected to support a number of community activities to enhance IDN deployment.

A new RFC co-authored by IANA staff specifies the XML format for label generation rulesets, the machine-readable expression of the rules governing permissible labels such as internationalized domain names.

A revised edition of the Root Zone KSK DNSSEC Practice Statement (DPS) has been published, and is effective immediately.

The annual audits of both our Root Zone DNSSEC operations, and our IANA Registry Management Systems, have been completed.

TLD managers are now able to list their RDAP servers through their root zone management interface. These RDAP servers will be integrated into the RDAP bootstrap registries IANA publishes.

We recently conducted our fourth annual customer satisfaction survey. We have now analyzed the results and can share them with the community. This report summarizes the survey methodology and the responses received.

ICANN is currently conducting the 2015 Annual IANA Customer Satisfaction Survey. If you have made use of the IANA services in the last year you should have received an invitation from Jennifer Clark at Ebiquity to participate in a survey hosted at https://www.ebiquityinsights.com/. Reminder emails will be sent next week asking for your participation before the survey closes on October 13th.

The .TP domain has been removed from the root zone, following a transition to its successor domain .TL (Timor-Leste). The underlying alpha-2 code "TP" was removed from the ISO 3166-1 standard in 2002.

In September 2014 ICANN invited customers of the IANA services to participate in its third annual customer satisfaction survey. We have now analyzed the results and are happy to report that the feedback was very positive. The report summarizes the survey methodology and the responses received and compares them to last year's results.

ICANN has engaged Ebiquity to administer its 2014 Annual Customer Survey. If you have made use of IANA request services in the last year you can expect to receive an invitation from Jennifer Clark to participate in a survey hosted at https://www.ebiquityinsights.com/.

The global recovery pool has been activated under the conditions of the governing policy. Code has been developed and published by IANA on how it will allocate IPv4 address blocks from the recovery pool.

In November 2013, ICANN invited customers of the IANA services to participate in its second annual customer satisfaction survey. We have now analyzed the results and are happy to report that the the feedback was very positive. The report summarizes the survey methodology and the responses received.

A new RFC authored by IANA staff defines the process for early allocation of code points from registries whose policies would otherwise require a completed standards action.

We are committed to operations excellence and have had an ongoing Business Excellence activity for the IANA functions since 2009. We are pleased to have received EFQM Committed to Excellence <http://www.efqm.org/what-we-do/recognition/committed-to-excellence> recognition for these departments following an assessment conducted by a panel of three independent assessors in August 2013.

The testing period for internationalized top-level domains (IDNs) in the DNS root zone has successfully concluded. The test IDN TLDs will be retired from the DNS root zone on 31 October 2013

A new RFC co-authored by IANA staff restructures the registries that catalog special-purpose IPv4 and IPv6 address blocks and the rules that govern them.

We are sharing an advisory that one of the DNS root servers is updating its IP address. Operators should up-date their configurations as appropriate.

ICANN is conducting a number of reviews regarding how the IANA functions are performed. These reviews are being conducted between late 2012 and mid-2013, and we welcome feedback.

In April and May 2012 ICANN invited users of the root zone management; protocol parameters management; and Internet Number Resources management services to participate in a customer satisfaction survey. We have now analyzed the results and are happy to report that the response rate was very healthy 22% and the feedback was very positive.

A new global policy has been ratified that guides IANA on making IPv4 allocations to RIRs smaller than /8, following the exhaustion of IANA's inventory of unallocated /8 address space.

We are conducting a short, one page survey to gather our customers’ perspective on the way ICANN provides IANA services. The survey will provide us with baseline customer satisfaction data we can measure against in the future. Please take a moment to respond to the survey. The survey is open until 11 May 2012, and we will summarize the results and publish the summary by the end of June 2012.

A new RFC co-authored by IANA staff establishes consolidated procedures for the management of the service name and transport protocol port number registry.

Scheduled maintenance of the DNS Root Management Systems will be conducted for one day commencing 2011-07-21 at 0000 UTC. Operation and availability of the DNS root zone will be unaffected, however there may be minor delays in processing root zone change requests for TLD managers. For more information on the upgrades, please read our Questions and Answers document.

The Interim Trust Anchor Repository (ITAR) will be retired over the coming months. Its functions have been replaced by the signed DNS root zone, and all functionality is now integrated with root zone management.

The DNS Root Zone is now signed with DNSSEC, with trust anchors and other information now available

Root zone changes are temporarily suspended during the DNSSEC rollout.

A new IANA WHOIS server is available for testing

Updates on the .HT domain and Intranet infrastructure following a major earthquake impacting Haiti

A notification of the process associated with allocation of the last remaining IPv4 unicast address space from IANA to the regional Internet registries.

The set of DNS root servers served under the hostname l.root-servers.net now have IPv6 capability, and have been added to the DNS root zone. We encourage operators of DNS infrastructure to update their DNS software to the most-updated IP addresses for the root servers. In particular, many DNS resolvers have a DNS root “hints” file. This should be updated with the revised set of IP addresss.

A request was processed that did not identify impacted TLDs correctly.

Significant updates are being made to migrate to XML as the baseline format for most protocol parameter registries maintained by IANA.

The five Regional Internet Registries and the IANA have cooperated to provide an update to the IANA Autonomous System (AS) Numbers Registry. The updated registry keeps the same format but includes more detailed and accurate information about the whois servers providing registration information for individual AS Numbers. In addition to the current format, the AS Numbers registry will be made available in XML during July.

IANA is currently engaged in a project to convert the protocol registries IANA maintains to XML to provide the community with improved ways of viewing registry information. An example of the registry with XML as the source has been published as a demonstration to the community. The temporary URL will work until the production launch of IANA's XML registries, at which time it will no longer function. You should not encode this URL in any enduring location, such as in computer software.

For several weeks updates to top-level domain data was not correctly propagated through our WHOIS service. There was no impact to the root zone itself or DNS function.

The IPv4 global address space registry has been restructured. For legacy allocations (i.e. those made before the RIR system), each /8 will now be designated to an RIR who in turn tracks allocations within that block.

For the first time, the DNS root servers will be accessible over IPv6 transport.