RFC 1591 (rfc1591) - Page 3 of 7
Domain Name System Structure and Delegation
Alternative Format: Original Text Document
RFC 1591 Domain Name System Structure and Delegation March 1994
domains (see US Domain, below).
MIL - This domain is used by the US military.
Example country code Domain:
US - As an example of a country domain, the US domain provides for
the registration of all kinds of entities in the United States
on the basis of political geography, that is, a hierarchy of
...US. For example,
"IBM.Armonk.NY.US". In addition, branches of the US domain are
provided within each state for schools (K12), community colleges
(CC), technical schools (TEC), state government agencies
(STATE), councils of governments (COG),libraries (LIB), museums
(MUS), and several other generic types of entities (see RFC 1480
for details [1]).
To find a contact for a TLD use the "whois" program to access the
database on the host rs.internic.net. Append "-dom" to the name of
TLD you are interested in. For example:
whois -h rs.internic.net us-dom
or
whois -h rs.internic.net edu-dom
3. The Administration of Delegated Domains
The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) is responsible for the
overall coordination and management of the Domain Name System (DNS),
and especially the delegation of portions of the name space called
top-level domains. Most of these top-level domains are two-letter
country codes taken from the ISO standard 3166.
A central Internet Registry (IR) has been selected and designated to
handled the bulk of the day-to-day administration of the Domain Name
System. Applications for new top-level domains (for example, country
code domains) are handled by the IR with consultation with the IANA.
The central IR is INTERNIC.NET. Second level domains in COM, EDU,
ORG, NET, and GOV are registered by the Internet Registry at the
InterNIC. The second level domains in the MIL are registered by the
DDN registry at NIC.DDN.MIL. Second level names in INT are
registered by the PVM at ISI.EDU.
While all requests for new top-level domains must be sent to the
Internic (at ), the regional registries are
often enlisted to assist in the administration of the DNS, especially
in solving problems with a country administration. Currently, the
RIPE NCC is the regional registry for Europe and the APNIC is the
Postel