geoff@Fernwood.MPK.CA.US (Geoff Goodfellow) (12/21/88)
US Domain Policy and Procedures - September 1988 (Revised)
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Jon Postel / Ann Westine
1. What is the US Domain and who is eligible to register?
The US domain is a Top Level domain created for people in the
United States who have computers at home, or small local
corporations who would like to register their host
geographically. A large corporation with offices all over the
world would probably want to register with .COM.
2. How do you register a host in the US Domain?
Send a message to the US Domain Registrar (Westine@ISI.EDU).
She will send you a US Domain Questionnaire to fill out.
3. How is the Naming Scheme set up for the US Domain and it's
subdivisions?
The US Domain is set up geographically, that is, states, cities,
etc. The state codes are those assigned by the US Postal
Service, and the city codes are Western Union's "City Mnemonics"
code that we will send to you. Another alternative for the city
code it to use the full name of your city.
For example: academ.hou.tx.us (or)
academ.houston.tx.us
4. Who will administer the US Domain and its subdivisions?
For now, the US Domain and all of its subdivisions (i.e.,
states, cities etc.) are managed by the US Domain Registrar.
The US Domain is just getting started and we want to be careful
about what names get used and how control is allocated until
some usage patterns are established. We will run the servers
for all the US domains. At some future point we will hand off
the administration of individual states to appropriate
responsible people, probably in the state they administer.
5. Can I manage a Domain Group?
The organizer of a group (or "domain park") of users with
individual hosts can help by acting as the coordinator of the
group and forwarding all the information for the group to the US
Domain Registrar.
The explicit specific information for each host in the group
must be provided. And all fully qualified names must be unique.
If your host is not directly on the internet an MX record is
required pointing to an internet host for forwarding.
For example:
JOES-HOST.ACADEM.HOU.TX.US MX 10 GAZETTE.BCM.TMC.EDU
SAMS-HOST.ACADEM.HOU.TX.US MX 10 GAZETTE.BCM.TMC.EDU
Wild card records are not currently allowed in the US domain.
If you want to keep tabs on user individual hosts in a certain
group and to register them say under "Houston" in the TX.US
domain, for example, JOES-HOST.ACADEM.HOUSTON.TX.US with
"ACADEM" as the group you would be managing, this would be ok.
But you can't manage all "HOUSTON" or all "TX", just your group.
6. How will the US Domain affect hosts in UUCP, CSNET and BITNET Zones?
If a host is registered in UUCP, BITNET, or CSNET Zone, it
doesn't need to register in the US domain, unless it wants to be
registered geographically. Only hosts on the internet can act
as forwarding hosts. Hosts on systems such as CSNET, UUCP,
BITNET, etc., must register their hosts with an internet host.
This is necessary because when messages for your host arrive at
the internet host it will need to know where to forward them.
MX records are necessary.
7. Can a host be in both the US Domain and another domain (like .EDU
or .COM)?
No. A host should have a single name. It is possible to have
"nicnames" for a brief period while a host name change is in
progress.
8. What does it cost?
Currently, there is no cost for registering in the US Domain.