7 Network Working Group J. Schlyter, Ed.
8 Request for Comments: 3845 August 2004
10 Category: Standards Track
13 DNS Security (DNSSEC) NextSECure (NSEC) RDATA Format
17 This document specifies an Internet standards track protocol for the
18 Internet community, and requests discussion and suggestions for
19 improvements. Please refer to the current edition of the "Internet
20 Official Protocol Standards" (STD 1) for the standardization state
21 and status of this protocol. Distribution of this memo is unlimited.
25 Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2004).
29 This document redefines the wire format of the "Type Bit Map" field
30 in the DNS NextSECure (NSEC) resource record RDATA format to cover
31 the full resource record (RR) type space.
35 1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
36 2. The NSEC Resource Record . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
37 2.1. NSEC RDATA Wire Format . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
38 2.1.1. The Next Domain Name Field . . . . . . . . . . . 3
39 2.1.2. The List of Type Bit Map(s) Field . . . . . . . 3
40 2.1.3. Inclusion of Wildcard Names in NSEC RDATA . . . 4
41 2.2. The NSEC RR Presentation Format . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
42 2.3. NSEC RR Example . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
43 3. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
44 4. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
45 5. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
46 5.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
47 5.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
48 6. Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
49 7. Author's Address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
50 8. Full Copyright Statement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
58 Schlyter, Ed. Standards Track [Page 1]
60 RFC 3845 DNSSEC NSEC RDATA Format August 2004
65 The DNS [6][7] NSEC [5] Resource Record (RR) is used for
66 authenticated proof of the non-existence of DNS owner names and
67 types. The NSEC RR is based on the NXT RR as described in RFC 2535
68 [2], and is similar except for the name and typecode. The RDATA
69 format for the NXT RR has the limitation in that the RDATA could only
70 carry information about the existence of the first 127 types. RFC
71 2535 did reserve a bit to specify an extension mechanism, but the
72 mechanism was never actually defined.
74 In order to avoid needing to develop an extension mechanism into a
75 deployed base of DNSSEC aware servers and resolvers once the first
76 127 type codes are allocated, this document redefines the wire format
77 of the "Type Bit Map" field in the NSEC RDATA to cover the full RR
80 This document introduces a new format for the type bit map. The
81 properties of the type bit map format are that it can cover the full
82 possible range of typecodes, that it is relatively economical in the
83 amount of space it uses for the common case of a few types with an
84 owner name, that it can represent owner names with all possible types
85 present in packets of approximately 8.5 kilobytes, and that the
86 representation is simple to implement. Efficient searching of the
87 type bitmap for the presence of certain types is not a requirement.
89 For convenience and completeness, this document presents the syntax
90 and semantics for the NSEC RR based on the specification in RFC 2535
91 [2] and as updated by RFC 3755 [5], thereby not introducing changes
92 except for the syntax of the type bit map.
94 This document updates RFC 2535 [2] and RFC 3755 [5].
96 The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
97 "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this
98 document are to be interpreted as described in BCP 14, RFC 2119 [1].
100 2. The NSEC Resource Record
102 The NSEC resource record lists two separate things: the owner name of
103 the next RRset in the canonical ordering of the zone, and the set of
104 RR types present at the NSEC RR's owner name. The complete set of
105 NSEC RRs in a zone indicate which RRsets exist in a zone, and form a
106 chain of owner names in the zone. This information is used to
107 provide authenticated denial of existence for DNS data, as described
110 The type value for the NSEC RR is 47.
114 Schlyter, Ed. Standards Track [Page 2]
116 RFC 3845 DNSSEC NSEC RDATA Format August 2004
119 The NSEC RR RDATA format is class independent and defined for all
122 The NSEC RR SHOULD have the same TTL value as the SOA minimum TTL
123 field. This is in the spirit of negative caching [8].
125 2.1. NSEC RDATA Wire Format
127 The RDATA of the NSEC RR is as shown below:
129 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 3 3
130 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
131 +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
133 +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
134 / List of Type Bit Map(s) /
135 +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
137 2.1.1. The Next Domain Name Field
139 The Next Domain Name field contains the owner name of the next RR in
140 the canonical ordering of the zone. The value of the Next Domain
141 Name field in the last NSEC record in the zone is the name of the
142 zone apex (the owner name of the zone's SOA RR).
144 A sender MUST NOT use DNS name compression on the Next Domain Name
145 field when transmitting an NSEC RR.
147 Owner names of RRsets that are not authoritative for the given zone
148 (such as glue records) MUST NOT be listed in the Next Domain Name
149 unless at least one authoritative RRset exists at the same owner
152 2.1.2. The List of Type Bit Map(s) Field
154 The RR type space is split into 256 window blocks, each representing
155 the low-order 8 bits of the 16-bit RR type space. Each block that
156 has at least one active RR type is encoded using a single octet
157 window number (from 0 to 255), a single octet bitmap length (from 1
158 to 32) indicating the number of octets used for the window block's
159 bitmap, and up to 32 octets (256 bits) of bitmap.
161 Window blocks are present in the NSEC RR RDATA in increasing
164 "|" denotes concatenation
166 Type Bit Map(s) Field = ( Window Block # | Bitmap Length | Bitmap ) +
170 Schlyter, Ed. Standards Track [Page 3]
172 RFC 3845 DNSSEC NSEC RDATA Format August 2004
175 Each bitmap encodes the low-order 8 bits of RR types within the
176 window block, in network bit order. The first bit is bit 0. For
177 window block 0, bit 1 corresponds to RR type 1 (A), bit 2 corresponds
178 to RR type 2 (NS), and so forth. For window block 1, bit 1
179 corresponds to RR type 257, and bit 2 to RR type 258. If a bit is
180 set to 1, it indicates that an RRset of that type is present for the
181 NSEC RR's owner name. If a bit is set to 0, it indicates that no
182 RRset of that type is present for the NSEC RR's owner name.
184 Since bit 0 in window block 0 refers to the non-existing RR type 0,
185 it MUST be set to 0. After verification, the validator MUST ignore
186 the value of bit 0 in window block 0.
188 Bits representing Meta-TYPEs or QTYPEs, as specified in RFC 2929 [3]
189 (section 3.1), or within the range reserved for assignment only to
190 QTYPEs and Meta-TYPEs MUST be set to 0, since they do not appear in
191 zone data. If encountered, they must be ignored upon reading.
193 Blocks with no types present MUST NOT be included. Trailing zero
194 octets in the bitmap MUST be omitted. The length of each block's
195 bitmap is determined by the type code with the largest numerical
196 value within that block, among the set of RR types present at the
197 NSEC RR's owner name. Trailing zero octets not specified MUST be
198 interpreted as zero octets.
200 2.1.3. Inclusion of Wildcard Names in NSEC RDATA
202 If a wildcard owner name appears in a zone, the wildcard label ("*")
203 is treated as a literal symbol and is treated the same as any other
204 owner name for purposes of generating NSEC RRs. Wildcard owner names
205 appear in the Next Domain Name field without any wildcard expansion.
206 RFC 2535 [2] describes the impact of wildcards on authenticated
209 2.2. The NSEC RR Presentation Format
211 The presentation format of the RDATA portion is as follows:
213 The Next Domain Name field is represented as a domain name.
215 The List of Type Bit Map(s) Field is represented as a sequence of RR
216 type mnemonics. When the mnemonic is not known, the TYPE
217 representation as described in RFC 3597 [4] (section 5) MUST be used.
226 Schlyter, Ed. Standards Track [Page 4]
228 RFC 3845 DNSSEC NSEC RDATA Format August 2004
233 The following NSEC RR identifies the RRsets associated with
234 alfa.example.com. and the next authoritative name after
237 alfa.example.com. 86400 IN NSEC host.example.com. A MX RRSIG NSEC
240 The first four text fields specify the name, TTL, Class, and RR type
241 (NSEC). The entry host.example.com. is the next authoritative name
242 after alfa.example.com. in canonical order. The A, MX, RRSIG, NSEC,
243 and TYPE1234 mnemonics indicate there are A, MX, RRSIG, NSEC, and
244 TYPE1234 RRsets associated with the name alfa.example.com.
246 The RDATA section of the NSEC RR above would be encoded as:
249 0x07 'e' 'x' 'a' 'm' 'p' 'l' 'e'
250 0x03 'c' 'o' 'm' 0x00
251 0x00 0x06 0x40 0x01 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x03
252 0x04 0x1b 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00
253 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00
254 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00
255 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x20
257 Assuming that the resolver can authenticate this NSEC record, it
258 could be used to prove that beta.example.com does not exist, or could
259 be used to prove that there is no AAAA record associated with
260 alfa.example.com. Authenticated denial of existence is discussed in
263 3. IANA Considerations
265 This document introduces no new IANA considerations, because all of
266 the protocol parameters used in this document have already been
267 assigned by RFC 3755 [5].
269 4. Security Considerations
271 The update of the RDATA format and encoding does not affect the
272 security of the use of NSEC RRs.
282 Schlyter, Ed. Standards Track [Page 5]
284 RFC 3845 DNSSEC NSEC RDATA Format August 2004
289 5.1. Normative References
291 [1] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate Requirement
292 Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.
294 [2] Eastlake 3rd, D., "Domain Name System Security Extensions", RFC
297 [3] Eastlake 3rd, D., Brunner-Williams, E., and B. Manning, "Domain
298 Name System (DNS) IANA Considerations", BCP 42, RFC 2929,
301 [4] Gustafsson, A., "Handling of Unknown DNS Resource Record (RR)
302 Types", RFC 3597, September 2003.
304 [5] Weiler, S., "Legacy Resolver Compatibility for Delegation Signer
305 (DS)", RFC 3755, May 2004.
307 5.2. Informative References
309 [6] Mockapetris, P., "Domain names - concepts and facilities", STD
310 13, RFC 1034, November 1987.
312 [7] Mockapetris, P., "Domain names - implementation and
313 specification", STD 13, RFC 1035, November 1987.
315 [8] Andrews, M., "Negative Caching of DNS Queries (DNS NCACHE)", RFC
320 The encoding described in this document was initially proposed by
321 Mark Andrews. Other encodings where proposed by David Blacka and
326 Jakob Schlyter (editor)
333 URI: http://www.nic.se/
338 Schlyter, Ed. Standards Track [Page 6]
340 RFC 3845 DNSSEC NSEC RDATA Format August 2004
343 8. Full Copyright Statement
345 Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2004).
347 This document is subject to the rights, licenses and restrictions
348 contained in BCP 78, and except as set forth therein, the authors
349 retain all their rights.
351 This document and the information contained herein are provided on an
352 "AS IS" basis and THE CONTRIBUTOR, THE ORGANIZATION HE/S HE
353 REPRESENTS OR IS SPONSORED BY (IF ANY), THE INTERNET SOCIETY AND THE
354 INTERNET ENGINEERING TASK FORCE DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR
355 IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO ANY WARRANTY THAT THE USE OF
356 THE INFORMATION HEREIN WILL NOT INFRINGE ANY RIGHTS OR ANY IMPLIED
357 WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
359 Intellectual Property
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394 Schlyter, Ed. Standards Track [Page 7]