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Domain Glossary - 101 Domain Category: Technical and IT > Domain name terms Date & country: 22/08/2013, USA Words: 54

A record
The representation of an IPv4 address in the DNS system.

AAAA record
The representation of an IPv6 address in the DNS system.

APIPA
A subcategory of private IP address. See Private IP Addresses.

AREG
A subset of IRIS for performing registration lookups on IP addresses.

Authoritative Name Server
a domain name server configured to host the official record of the contents of a DNS zone. Each Barbados ..bbdomain name must have a set of these so computers on the Internet can find out the contents of that domain. The set of authoritative name servers for any given domain must be configured as NS records in the parent domain.

Caching Resolver
the combination of a recursive name server and a caching name server.

DCHK
A subset of IRIS for performing checks on whether a domain name is available to register. It is more lightweight, and has less privacy implications, than DREG as it does not transmit registration data other than simple availability.

delegation
Any transfer of responsibility to another entity. In the domain name system, one name server can provide pointers to more useful name servers for a given request by returning NS records. On an administrative level, sub-domains are delegated to other entities. IANA also delegates IP address blocks to regional Internet registries.

DNS zone
a section of the Domain Name System name space. By default, the Root Zone contains all domain names, however in practice sections of this are delegated into smaller zones in a hierarchical fashion. For example, the .bb zone would refer to the portion of the DNS delegated that ends in .bb.

DNSSEC
A technology that can be added to the Domain Name System to verify the authenticity of its data. The works by adding verifiable chains of trust that can be validated to the domain name system.

Domain Name Registrar for .bb
An entity offering domain name registration services, as an agent between registrants and registries. Usually multiple registrars exist who compete with each other, and are accredited. For most generic top-level domains, domain name registrars are accredited by ICANN.

Domain Name Registry .bb, Barbados
A registry tasked with managing the contents of a DNS zone, by giving registrations of sub-domains to registrants.

Domain Name Server
A general term for a system on the Internet that answers requests to convert domain names into something else. These can be subdivided into authoritative name servers, which store the database for a particular DNS zone; as well as recursive name servers and caching name servers.

Domain Name System (DNS)
The global hierarchical system of domain names. A global distributed database contains the information to perform the domain name conversations, and the most central part of that database, known as the root zone is coordinated by IANA.

GAC Principles
A document, formally known as the Principles for the Delegation and Administration of ccTLDs. This document was developed by the ICANN Governmental Advisory Committee and documents a set of principles agreed by governments on how ccTLDs should be delegated and run.

Generic top-level domains (gTLDs)
A class of top-level domains that are used for general purposes, where ICANN has a strong role in coordination (as opposed to country-code top-level domains, which are managed locally).

Hints File
A file stored in DNS software (i.e. recursive name servers) that tells it where the DNS root servers are located.

Hostname
The name of a computer. Typically the left-most part of a fully-qualified domain name.

IANA Considerations
A component of RFCs that refer to any work required by IANA to maintain registries for a specific protocol.

IANA Contract
The contract between ICANN and the US Government that governs how various IANA functions are performed.

Internet Architecture Board (IAB)
The oversight body of the IETF, responsible for overall strategic direction of Internet standardisation efforts. The IAB works with ICANN on how the IANA protocol parameter registries should be managed. The IAB is an activity of the Internet Society, a non-profit organisation.

Internet Coordination Policy (ICP)
A series of documents created by ICANN between 1999 and 2000 describing management procedures.

IP address
A unique identifier for a device on the Internet. The identifier is used to accurately route Internet traffic to that device. IP addresses must be unique on the global Internet.

IPv4
Internet Protocol version 4. Refers to the version of Internet protocol that supports 32-bit IP addresses.

IPv6
Internet Protocol version 6. Refers to the version of Internet protocol that supports 128-bit IP addresses.

NS record
a type of record in a DNS zone that signifies part of that zone is delegated to a different set of authoritative name servers.

Parent domain
the domain above a domain in the DNS hierarchy. For all top-level domains, the Root Zone is the parent domain. The Root Zone has no parent domain as it is as the top of the hierarchy. Opposite of sub-domain.

Private enterprise numbers (PENs)
A unique numbering system used by several different Internet protocols (such as SNMP and LDAP) that use Abstract Notation Syntax One (ASN.1).

PTR record
The representation of a IP address to domain name mapping in the DNS system.

Recursive Name Server
A domain name server configured to perform DNS lookups on behalf of other computers.

Redelegation
The transfer of a delegation from one entity to another. Most commonly used to refer to the redelegation process used for top-level domains.

Redelegation process
A special type of root zone change where there is a significant change involving the transfer of operations of a top-level domain to a new entity.

Regional Internet Registry (RIR)
A registry responsible for allocation of IP address resources within a particular region.

Registrant
The entity that has acquired the right to use an Internet resource. Usually this is via some form of revocable grant given by a registrar to list their registration in a registry.

Registrar .bb
An entity that can act on requests from a registrant in making changes in a registry. Usually the registrar is the same entity that operates a registry, although for domain names this role is often split to allow for competition between multiple registrars who offer different levels of support.

Registry .bb Barbados
The authoritative record of registrations for a particular set of data. Most often used to refer to domain name registry, but all protocol parameters that IANA maintains are also registries.

Reverse IP
A method of translating an IP address into a domain name, so-called as it is the opposite of a typical lookup that converts a domain name to an IP address.

RFCs
A series of Internet engineering documents describing Internet standards, as well as discussion papers, informational memorandums and best practices. Internet standards that are published in an RFC originate from the IETF. The RFC series is published by the RFC Editor.

Root Servers
the authoritative name servers for the Root Zone.

Root Zone
The top of the domain name system hierarchy. The root zone contains all of the delegations for top-level domains, as well as the list of root servers, and is managed by IANA.

Root Zone Management RZM
The management of the DNS Root Zone by IANA.

Sponsoring organization
The entity acting as the trustee of a top-level domain on behalf of its designated community.

Trust anchor
A known good cryptographic certificate that can be used to validate a chain of trust. trust anchor repository (TAR) Any repository of public keys that can be used as trust anchors for validating chains of trust. See Interim Trust Anchor Repository (ITAR) for one such repository for top-level domain operators using DNSSEC.

Trustee
An entity entrusted with the operations of an Internet resource for the benefit of the wider community. In IANA circles, usually in reference to the sponsoring organisation of a top-level domain.

U-label
The Unicode representation of an internationalised domain name, i.e. how it is shown to the end-user. Contrast with A-label.

Unicode
A standard describing a repertoire of characters used to represent most of the worlds languages in written form. Unicode is the basis for internationalized domain names.

Unsponsored top-level domain
a sub-classification of generic top-level domain, where there is no formal community of interest.

UTF-8
A standard used for transmitting Unicode characters.

Variant bundle
A collection of multiple domain names that are grouped together because some of the characters are considered variants of the others.

Variant table
A type of IDN table that describes the variants for a particular language or script. For example, a variant table may map Simplified Chinese characters to Traditional Chinese characters for the purpose of constructing a variant bundle.

WHOIS database
Used to refer to parts of a registry

WHOIS gateway
An interface, usually a web-based form, that will perform a look-up to a WHOIS server. This allows one to find WHOIS information without needing a specialised computer program that speaks the WHOIS protocol.

WHOIS server
A system running on port number 43 that accepts queries using the WHOIS protocol.

XML
A machine-readable file format for storing structured data. Used to represent web pages (in a subset called HTML) etc. Used by IANA for storing protocol parameter registries