Universal Acceptance: APNIC system readiness Byron Ellacott Senior Software Architect

Universal Acceptance for APNIC Support for longer top level domain names Support for Internationalised Domain Names (IDNs) Support for Addresses Internationalisation (EAIs) 2

APNIC system gap analysis: scope Determine readiness of APNIC systems to support Universal Acceptance Identify gaps in readiness Assess work required and any roadblocks to full support 3

External systems: Can we send/receive EAI mail? –No. Limited or missing support in vendor software Vendors have indicated EAI support is of low importance But we can send and receive mail to IDNs encoded into ASCII 4

External systems: WHOIS Current implementation is based on older standards –RFC addresses, RFC 1128 domain labels Poor character set support in WHOIS –None at all in the protocol! Front-end tools could alter IDNs to ASCII for WHOIS –And some query tools could convert ASCII IDNs to UNICODE Supporting EAI means changing syntax and search rules 5

External systems: MyAPNIC MyAPNIC deals with many addresses –Login IDs, contacts, resource lists, tickets Reverse DNS tools –Should convert IDNs to ASCII for DNS updates Member details –Member organisation homepage URL 6

Internal systems: ARMS Similar set of addresses to MyAPNIC Tools for managing WHOIS records Database configuration for MySQL to support UTF8 7

Next steps for UA at APNIC Ensure IDNs are supported effectively Ensure EAI addresses are not mangled on input Determine best way to support UA in WHOIS 8

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