Re: [FreeDNS] Inactive domains

[Mark J Elkins <mje@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Christiaan Keet wrote:

On Wed, Jul 12, 2006 at 02:20:42AM +0100, Jan Henkins wrote:
  

Hello there,

I would like to know what the resolution process would be for reclaiming 
inactive domains. In at least one such case, I have tried to get in 
touch with the registered owner of the domain, but nothing came back. In 
fact, the DNS servers listed as primary for that particular domain 
doesn't exist any more. What can we do in such cases? Commercial 
registrars have workflows in place for such situations ranging from the 
sublime to the rediculous, but what would the process be here?

Thanks in advance! :-)
    

Jan,

Excellent question. We've actually got this question fairly regularly,
especially in the last few months. I'm ashamed to say that we've
never got round to working out a proper solution for this scenario.
So far the answer has pretty much just been "sorry, can't help you".
I guess for "regular" registrars that charge recurring fees for
domains it's easier to deal with... customer doesn't pay, domain
expires, domain gets released for re-registration after X period.

If someone has a bit of time and wants to think the whole process
(and pitfalls!) through and come up with some suggestions we'll
definitely see if we can work it in though!
  

Hi all... as the person who originally wrote and automated the co.za system - maybe I can comment.
The main reason that we changed from an Update fee to a Yearly fee was to try and stop contact data getting stale and for clearing out domains if they were no longer needed. This has worked quite well.

In a free model system - I believe that you'd need a system to do several things....

Only add a delegation once all the nameservers are up and running - do all the cross-checks - etc. Record the SOA Serial number at the registry.

Every so often (once every three or six months) - check that the Nameservers are still in sync and again fetch the SOA serial number. If the Nameservers are in Sync or the SOA serial number is changing - everything is probably OK.

If the Nameserver checks fail and the SOA serial number is not changing - retry 10 or so times - backing off logarithmically (double the retry time?)

On every second Nameserver check failure -
  e-mail the registrant and the SOA e-mail contact (containing the Nameserver check results) - and get them to somehow acknowledge that the domain is not in use or fix their Nameservers

There needs to be some sort of condition in the terms and conditions that in the event that the Nameservers are broken and e-mail requests remain unacknowledged that the domain is then automatically removed.

(maybe ignore the SOA Serial Number bits)

-- 
  .  .     ___. .__      Posix Systems - Sth Africa
 /| /|       / /__       mje@xxxxxxxxxxx  -  Mark J Elkins, SCO ACE, Cisco CCIE
/ |/ |ARK \_/ /__ LKINS  Tel: +27 12 807 0590  Cell: +27 82 601 0496

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