special-use domain names

This document specifies the behavior that is expected from the Domain Name System with regard to DNS queries for names ending with '.home.arpa.' and designates this domain as a special-use domain name. 'home.arpa.' is designated for non-unique use in residential home networks. The Home Networking Control Protocol (HNCP) is updated to use the 'home.arpa.' domain instead of '.home'.

The policy defined in RFC 6761 for IANA registrations in the "Special-Use Domain Names" registry has been shown, through experience, to present challenges that were not anticipated when RFC 6761 was written. This memo presents a list, intended to be comprehensive, of the problems that have since been identified. In addition, it reviews the history of domain names and summarizes current IETF publications and some publications from other organizations relating to Special-Use Domain Names.

This document should be considered required reading for IETF participants who wish to express an informed opinion on the topic of Special-Use Domain Names.

This document describes what it means to say that a Domain Name (DNS name) is reserved for special use, when reserving such a name is appropriate, and the procedure for doing so. It establishes an IANA registry for such domain names, and seeds it with entries for some of the already established special domain names.