Analysis of processing issue with recent IPv6 nameserver change request

22 October 2008

At the request of the .AERO administrators on 7 October 2008, a change request was submitted for adding an IPv6 address for a secondary nameserver to the DNS root zone.

Under current procedures, ICANN staff performing the IANA function (IANA) completes a set of technical checks to determine the technical competence of the requested changes. If the technical checks reveal a shared status of the affected name server, all top-level domain managers that use the name server are asked to confirm the change in the root zone before implementation. However, during the technical check for this .AERO request, the shared status and its impact on the .MUSEUM and .CAT top-level domains was not properly identified. As a result, IANA did not note the shared status of this request.

When verifying the results of the relevant root zone update, staff noted that this change also affected the .MUSEUM and .CAT top-level domains. While simultaneously working to understand the root cause of the issue (then not known), IANA staff immediately contacted the top-level domains managers to inform them about the change.

The addition of an IPv6 address to a shared name server does not harm the top-level domains not requesting that update. Once the issue with this .AERO change was identified, staff advised the .MUSEUM and .CAT TLD managers of the change and received replies from both TLD managers confirming after-the-fact agreement with this change.

ICANN has implemented a change in internal procedures to include the technical check results in the relevant request "ticket" (electronic request record) for future reference. This will act as a safeguard and an in-line verification that the check has been successfully completed.