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CODEV-NIC free registry software Stéphane Bortzmeyer AFNIC (".fr" registry) bortzmeyer@nic.fr 2 march 2006 1 CODEV-NIC free registry software Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License http://www.gnu.org/licenses/licenses.html#FDL, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation ; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts. 2 CODEV-NIC free registry software The target The small or medium DNS registry for a TLD (Top-Level Domain) Managing a TLD is possible even in a small country, with few resources. A lot of value for a small investment. 3 CODEV-NIC free registry software A registry is . . . I A database, I Tools to update and query it, from the registry and from outside, I A few applications like the whois server, a DNS zone le generator. . . 4 CODEV-NIC free registry software The state of ccTLD Many ccTLD in the world are a in very poor state : 1. No real Information System, 2. Often, no written registration rules and procedures, 3. No whois server, 4. No real database (Excel spreadsheet, paper), registration often manual, 5. Only a few dozens of registrations, 6. Expensive, 7. Name servers not fully operational. CODEV-NIC tries to address #1, #3 and #4 and may be indirectly #5 and #6. 5 CODEV-NIC free registry software No fatality A ccTLD is manageable with low-tech systems Small machines and simple software 6 CODEV-NIC free registry software Set of requirments 1. Multi-policy, 2. Free software, 3. Easily managed from the registry or from outside (registrars, public), 4. Entirely automatic, 5. Co-developed (no outsourcing, real co-development). Mostly for small and medium registries (com was not a target). 7 CODEV-NIC free registry software Multi-policy Our most important requirment. Every TLD has a dierent registration policy. Our vision is not one of uniformity. We want to be multi-policy. Examples of dierences : I Direct selling vs. registry/registrar. If registrars, are they the only authority (for instance with contacts) or not ? I IDN or not, I Synchronous registration or not (papers required), I Automatic expiration or explicit deletion ? I Personal data protection. 8 CODEV-NIC free registry software Existing software I OpenReg, ISC http://www.isc.org/index.pl?/sw/openreg/ Very good software but : I Only one registration policy (basically the one of org), I No interface for the registry sta or for the ordinary user (you have to develop it as an EPP client or as a message bus component), I The only interface for the registrars is EPP, which I regard as completely unrealistic for most countries. I SRS-NZ http://sourceforge.net/projects/dnrs/ I Only one registration policy I Not maintained for general use I registro.br : non free 9 CODEV-NIC free registry software The project Four teams (three actually) in dierent countries. This is co-development : the best way to be sure the software is suitable for the users. I NIC-CI (Ivory Coast) I NIC-MG (Madagascar) I AFNIC (France), manager. Most of the money came from the french government. 10 CODEV-NIC free registry software The process First, a one-month workshop (feb. 2005) to discuss, prototype, brainstorm. Participants came from seven NIC : Haiti, Algeria, Ivory Coast, Gabon, Madagascar, Mauritania, France. Then, development, with various groupware tools (Subversion, Request Tracker, mailing lists, IRC session). Poor Internet connectivity was a big problem in Madagascar. The Ivory Coast developers worked during a civil war. 11 CODEV-NIC free registry software Technical choices I Python programming language : simplicity and readability, I DBMS PostgreSQL : triggers, integrity constraints, stored procedures, I Cheetah templating system (not only for the Web site but also for making the system multi-policy), I Apache, mod_python and Vampire for the Web site. I Docbook and Python's reST for the documentation. Continous integration testing automatically, every day http://www.martinfowler.com/articles/ continuousIntegration.html. 12 CODEV-NIC free registry software The con guration le Technical and policy choices are there. Most parameters are static : you cannot change them afterwards. tld=example idn = false have_registrars= true registrar_manages_contacts = true 13 CODEV-NIC free registry software The database I Ambition : to be the unique reference for the TLD (no state in the zone le, for instance), I Integrity constraints, as far as SQL goes (triggers and stored procedures), I Not really portable (impossible with SQL), I Use of Cheetah templates to implement multi-policy. 14 CODEV-NIC free registry software The library Every access to the database (except read-only accesses) goes through the library. One Python class per type of object : Domains, Contacts, Nameservers. . . Hooks for the local customization. 15 CODEV-NIC free registry software The XML-RPC server The only external interface is a XML-RPC server (an email interface is planned). People outside of the registry (registrars, authorized users) can read and write in the database. 16 CODEV-NIC free registry software Aynchronous operations For instance, transfers between registrars. CODEV-NIC relies on an existing tool : Request Tracker. That way, we do not have to reinvent the wheel. Request Tracker is easily interfacable, thanks to scrips. 17 CODEV-NIC free registry software Deployment Operational today in Ivory Coast (starting in february 2006). In Madagascar may be this year. 18 CODEV-NIC free registry software Current state I Not enough deployments to be too assertive, I Installation and deployment still very rough (no tarball, no configure script), I Some pieces are missing like IDN support. But it is free software, you are welcome to help. 19 CODEV-NIC free registry software
