I would insecurely “delegate”” internal back to the root servers.   Delegating 
to “.” produces a broken configuration. If the traffic gets too big internal 
can be redirected to sacrificial servers as is done for RFC1918 reverses. 
-- 
Mark Andrews

> On 19 Apr 2025, at 02:19, Peter Thomassen <[email protected]> wrote:
> 
> 
> 
>> On 4/18/25 10:24, Philip Homburg wrote:
>> The current draft contains the following text:
>> DNSSEC validating resolvers will fail to resolve names ending in "internal".
>> In my opinion we should not have a specification that leads to DNSSEC
>> validation errors.
> 
> I agree this is a problem, and therefore I'm against adopting this draft 
> unless this problem is resolved.
> 
> Once it is resolved, I have no position on adopting it: I'm not sure the 
> draft's net benefit is positive (transparency) or negative (burden). I expect 
> it to be minimal either way.
> 
> 
> How to solve it? An insecure delegation would help.
> 
> Although the idea was previously discarded, it's worth reconsidering its 
> implications. Please see below for an analysis.
> 
> 
> When Mark suggested an insecure delegation at IETF 122, Warren objected [1] 
> that it can't be done because the label won't be delegated, citing the SSAC 
> recommendation:
> 
>> 5: Mark Andrews: The Locally Served Zones registry requires that there is an 
>> insecure delegation in the root zone. This is also needed to make the zone 
>> actually work with DNSSEC…
>> W: I'm not at all sure that the first sentence is true - or, at least I 
>> don't really see why it follows.
>> I *do* however fully agree that there really should be an insecure 
>> delegation in order to make DNSSEC work, but unfortunately the SSAC 
>> document[3] which asked for this says: "Recommendation 1: The SSAC 
>> recommends that the ICANN Board ensure a string is identified using the 
>> criteria specified in Section 4.1 and reserved at the top level for private 
>> use. This particular string must never be delegated."
> 
> The SSAC recommendation is just a recommendation; when following it (which 
> the ICANN Board is not obliged to), reasonable action would be to not execute 
> it by the letter, but by its intention.
> 
> However, the constraining document, is not the SSAC report, but really the 
> ICANN Board's resolution [2]:
> 
>> Resolved (2024.07.29.06), the Board reserves .INTERNAL from delegation in 
>> the DNS root zone permanently to provide for its use in private-use 
>> applications. The Board recommends that efforts be undertaken to raise 
>> awareness of its reservation for this purpose through the organization's 
>> technical outreach.
> 
> Note that the action ("reserves .INTERNAL from delegation") is relative to a 
> purpose, "to provide for its use in private-use applications".
> 
> I would therefore argue that "delegation" here implicitly means a "normal 
> delegation" because it would hand over control to some other operator, 
> defeating the purpose.
> 
> Excluding a special pseudo-delegation that actually *helps* the purpose is 
> not a helpful interpretation.
> 
> If .INTERNAL was delegated to a special name (like the DNS root), that 
> purpose could be conserved, and the label would continue to be reserved from 
> (normal) delegation -- BUT the zone would be unlinked from DNSSEC, removing 
> related failure modes:
> 
> internal.  IN NS    .
> internal.  IN NSEC  international. NS RRSIG NSEC  # no DS
> internal.  IN RRSIG NSEC ...
> 
> Adding these three lines in the root zone still qualifies as "not a normal 
> TLD delegation", but achieves the purpose while making in work with the 
> DNSSEC protocol.
> 
> Those lines explicitly declare that the root's signing keys have no authority 
> under .INTERNAL, which, in fact, they don't, because .INTERNAL is private 
> use. It almost seems illogical to not have this carve-out.
> 
> In fact, *absolutely* not delegating INTERNAL. does NOT achieve the purpose 
> "to provide for its use in private-use applications", because "it's broken by 
> default".
> 
> Making this change is more (not less) in the spirit of the SSAC's proposal, 
> and presumably of what the ICANN Board resolved.
> 
> Not making this change is constraining things artificially to a degree that 
> in fact thwarts the actual purpose of the label reservation in the first 
> place!
> 
> 
> My suggestion is therefore that we should talk to ICANN if the above 
> procedure would be in line with the meaning of the resolution; if not, 
> perhaps it could be clarified. -- I'm aware this is not an IETF topic, but it 
> is a dependency for the proposed draft to make sense.
> 
> As for why this happened, I suspect that "will not be delegated" was written 
> to indicate that "authority" will not be transferred to any registry, but 
> unfortunately it was forgotten that one also has to un-declare the authority 
> of the parent's signing keys in this case. -- This seems like a simple 
> omission, and with proper explanation I'd hope it would be possible to get it 
> fixed.
> 
> Thanks,
> Peter
> 
> [1]: https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/dnsop/IWH_Dm3aM3HNAmBrv9PVByj8g3I/
> [2]: 
> https://www.icann.org/en/board-activities-and-meetings/materials/approved-resolutions-special-meeting-of-the-icann-board-29-07-2024-en#section2.a
> 
> --
> https://desec.io/

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