[db-wg] Internationalized domain names in the data abase?

Hello Ronald, DB-WG,

> On 6 Nov 2019, at 23:46, Ronald F. Guilmette via db-wg <db-wg at ripe.net> wrote:
> 
> In message <20191106210554.GB5460 at hydra.ck.polsl.pl>, 
> Piotr Strzyzewski <Piotr.Strzyzewski at polsl.pl> wrote:
> 
>> I do not object having properly coded non-ASCII email addresses in the
>> database. 
> 
> First, just to be clear, we are really only discussing the representation
> of domain names within the data base.  Of course, any email address contains
> one of those, but we are specifically -not- discussing the representation
> of the user-ID portion of any email address in the data base.
> 

Understood. The user-ID (local) portion of an email address is not affected, only the domain.

> Second, it is nice that you are OK with "properly coded non-ASCII" domain
> names in the data base.  So I am I.  That's not the question.  The question
> is how should IDNs be -represented- within the data base.
> 
> As I have stated, it is my opinion that the only two viable options at
> the present time are either (a) punycode or else (b) UTF-8.

DB-WG:

- if (a), should the RIPE database automatically convert IDN domain names in email addresses into punycode?
- or if (b), should the RIPE database support UTF-8 for the domain part of IDN email addresses? This is technically possible in the Whois server side, but it's a large change for clients.

> 
> ISO-8859-1 is not, as far as I know, a standardized or appropriate way
> of encoding IDNs in any context.  If I am wrong about that, then please
> do correct me an please do point me at the RFC which states otherwise.
> 

Using ISO-8859-1 to encode IDN email addresses in the RIPE database does cause some issues:

- Only a small subset of the UTF-8 character set is supported, characters outside ISO-8859-1 are substituted with a '?' on Whois update.
- ISO-8859-1 encoded email addresses may not be handled properly by Whois clients or mail servers.

> 
> Regards,
> rfg
> 

Regards
Ed Shryane
RIPE NCC