Amani M. Bin Sewaif

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i
DNS
Internationalized Domain Names
Amani M. Bin Sewaif Senior Engineer Services
Operations Maintenance Etisalat Intenet e
Solution amani_at_ies.etisalat.ae November 1, 2004
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Outline

• Introduction
• Overview
• GCC project for Arabic Domain Names
• How IDNS works?
• Client Requirements
• IDN conversion Tool
• A list of supported IDNS applications
• Conclusion

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Introduction

• Domain names are used widely by Internet users to
  find resources on the Internet. They contain
  alphanumeric strings separated by dots, e.g.,
  www.etisalat.ae. That are not required by the
  network software, but are used for human
  convenience.
• Domain names are used instead of the numerical
  addresses that are known as Internet protocol
  (IP) addresses, which are mainly used by machines
  to route data packets on the Internet. Name
  resolution is carried out by the Internet domain
  name system (DNS). It further contains a mapping
  or conversion between each name and one or more
  IP addresses.
• The DNS is a distributed database and organize
  all registered names in a tree structure.

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IDNS Overview

• IDN abbreviation stands for Internationalized
  Domain Name. It defines a domain name which
  contains specific characters for particular
  language.
• Example of IDNS ADNS (Arabic Domain Names)
• Since the Internet begin, it supported only 7-bit
  ASCII code (English characters), and the Domain
  name System (DNS) supports alphabets, numbers and
  hyphen of the ASCII code.
• There is a need to support multilingual
  characters in domain names in order to make the
  Internet globally accessible.

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IDNS Overview

• IDNA works by allowing applications to use
  certain ASCII name labels (beginning with a
  special prefix) to represent non-ASCII name
  labels. Lower-layer protocols need not be aware
  of this therefore IDNA does not depend on
  changes to any infrastructure. In particular,
  IDNA does not depend on any changes to DNS
  servers, resolvers, or protocol elements, because
  the ASCII name service provided by the existing
  DNS is entirely sufficient for IDNA. rfc3490

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The GCC Project for Arabic Domain Names

• MissionTo implement a test bed for Arabic Domain
  names in the GCC countries. This will allow all
  GCC countries to early experience the use of
  Arabic domain names, identify our needs, locate
  possible problems, and develop some tools.
• Objectives1. To gain experience and knowledge of
  the Arabic Domain names and share it with Arab
  countries.2. Test the implantations of Arabic
  Domain names.3. Build the local awareness about
  Arabic Domain names.4. Establish joint work with
  other entities (i.e., ISPs, universities, ).5.
  Possibly develop some tools related to Arabic
  domain names and DNS.

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GCC Participation
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The Arabic root and ccTLD
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How IDN Works?
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How to resolve Arabic Domain Name?
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Client Requirements

• These are a list of requirements for a client in
  order to resolve/reach Arabic test domain names
• These problems occurred because some main
  Internet entities and software developer have not
  fully supported internationalized domain names
  (IDN) (such as ICANN and Microsoft). Therefore a
  client should match some requirements in order to
  resolve/reach Arabic domain names.
• Personal Computer and Internet connectivity.
• The Internet Service Provider (ISP) name server
  (resolver) should support Arabic domain names (by
  participating in this project) or the client can
  setup his own name server (resolver).
• Any browser that support Internationalized
  Domain Names (IDN)

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IDNS/ADNS Converting Tool

• Tool to convert Unicode to ASCII format
• The ACE prefix (ASCII compatible encoding) for
  IDNA is "xn--"

http//xn--mgbaakc7dvf.xn--mgbaam7a8h
http//???????.??????
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A list of support IDNS application

• Browsers
• Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.0 and higher
  Verisign i-Nav TM PlugIn
• Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0 and higher
  ISCs IDN-OSS
• Netscape 7.1 and higher
• Mozilla 1.4 and higher
• Mozilla Firefox 0.6 and higher (former Mozilla
  Firebird)
• Opera 7.20 and higher
• Konqueror (from KDE 3.2 GNU IDN Library)
• Epiphany 1.2.2 and higher
• Galeon 1.3.14 and higher
• Safari 1.2 and higher
• Mozilla Camino 0.7 and higher
• To enable IDN in an IE browser, it is necessary
  to install special plug-in supporting IDNs.

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A list of support IDNS application

• EMAIL
• Microsoft Outlook 2000, 2002 (XP), 2003 Outlook
  Express 5.0 and
• higher - Verisign i-Nav PlugIn Foxmail 5.0
  and higher
• VisNetic MailServer 7.2.4 build 0 and higher
• Merak Mail Server 7.4.0 and higher
• PHlyMail
• FTP
• SmartFTP 1.0 Build 980
• Core FTP Version 1.3a
• SecureFTP 4.0.2004 Release and higher
• FTP Voyager 11.0 and higher

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Browsing ???????.?????
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Browsing a domain with xn-- prefix
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More information..

• http//www.arabic-domains.org.sa/main-en.php
• http//arabic-domains.org.sa/ar/how2use.php
• http//idn.isc.org/
• http//????.??????
• IDNS RFCs
• http//www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3490.txt
• http//www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3491.txt
• http//www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3492.txt

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QUESTIONS
?