IDN support in .kiwi

The registration of IDNs (internationalised domain names) with macronised vowels which feature in the Māori language, an official language under New Zealand law, has been permitted in the .kiwi name space since go live in 2014.

Domain names are allowed to consist of 26 basic English (Latin) alphabet characters a-z, digits, the ‘-’ hyphen, and characters ā, ē, ī, ō and ū.

Latn

The following character table is called Latn and contains the characters used by Fury for the registration of .kiwi domains represented using the Latin script.

IANA KIWI Latn Table

The table lists the Unicode code points in the U+XXXX format:

Code point

Character

Example

U+002D

HYPEN-MINUS

-

U+0030

DIGIT ZERO

0

U+0031

DIGIT ONE

1

U+0032

DIGIT TWO

2

U+0033

DIGIT THREE

3

U+0034

DIGIT FOUR

4

U+0035

DIGIT FIVE

5

U+0036

DIGIT SIX

6

U+0037

DIGIT SEVEN

7

U+0038

DIGIT EIGHT

8

U+0039

DIGIT NINE

9

U+0061

LATIN SMALL LETTER A

a

U+0062

LATIN SMALL LETTER B

b

U+0063

LATIN SMALL LETTER C

c

U+0064

LATIN SMALL LETTER D

d

U+0065

LATIN SMALL LETTER E

e

U+0066

LATIN SMALL LETTER F

f

U+0067

LATIN SMALL LETTER G

g

U+0068

LATIN SMALL LETTER H

h

U+0069

LATIN SMALL LETTER I

i

U+006A

LATIN SMALL LETTER J

j

U+006B

LATIN SMALL LETTER K

k

U+006C

LATIN SMALL LETTER L

l

U+006D

LATIN SMALL LETTER M

m

U+006E

LATIN SMALL LETTER N

n

U+006F

LATIN SMALL LETTER O

o

U+0070

LATIN SMALL LETTER P

p

U+0071

LATIN SMALL LETTER Q

q

U+0072

LATIN SMALL LETTER R

r

U+0073

LATIN SMALL LETTER S

s

U+0074

LATIN SMALL LETTER T

t

U+0075

LATIN SMALL LETTER U

u

U+0076

LATIN SMALL LETTER V

v

U+0077

LATIN SMALL LETTER W

w

U+0078

LATIN SMALL LETTER X

x

U+0079

LATIN SMALL LETTER Y

y

U+007A

LATIN SMALL LETTER Z

z

U+0101

LATIN SMALL LETTER A WITH MACRON

ā

U+0113

LATIN SMALL LETTER E WITH MACRON

ē

U+012B

LATIN SMALL LETTER I WITH MACRON

ī

U+014D

LATIN SMALL LETTER O WITH MACRON

ō

U+016B

LATIN SMALL LETTER U WITH MACRON

ū

Terminology and standards

The .kiwi IDN implementation must be compliant with the technical requirements described in various RFCs (3454, 3490, 3491, and 3492) collectively called the “IDN standards”.

There are a lot of terms and definitions in use related to IDNs mentioned in the RFCs and other IDN documents. Listed below are some brief definitions of the common terms. Refer to the RFCs for the comprehensive definitions.

The external-form or display form of an IDN is called U-label and the internal-form or stored form is called A-label.

The U-label string is the Native Script name in Unicode. This is normally the display format of the name and is how the user enters the name in a web browser. This name is also known as the IDNA-valid string.

The A-label string is the ASCII-Compatible Encoding (ACE) form of the U-label. This name is also known as the “punycode” name. Every A-label will begin with the IDNA ACE prefix, “xn--” followed by a string that is a valid output of the Punycode algorithm and hence a maximum of 59 ASCII characters in length. The prefix and string together must conform to all requirements for a label that can be stored in the DNS including conformance to the rules for the preferred form described in RFC 1034, RFC 1035, and RFC 1123. A string meeting the above requirements is still not an A-label unless it can be decoded into a U-label.

Conversions between U-labels and A-labels are performed according to the “Punycode”specification [RFC3492], adding or removing the ACE prefix as needed.

IDN support via EPP

To register an IDN via EPP you use the EPP XML example for creating an IDN name as provided in the Registrar guide on the page at Fury Registrar Guide and in the help section of the portal. An example is included below for your convenience.

<epp xmlns="urn:ietf:params:xml:ns:epp-1.0">
  <command>
    <create>
      <domain:create xmlns:domain="urn:ietf:params:xml:ns:domain-1.0">
        <domain:name>xn--domain-with-mcron-z5b.kiwi</domain:name>
        <domain:period unit="m">24</domain:period>
        <domain:registrant>945-h-0</domain:registrant>
        <domain:contact type="admin">945-h-0</domain:contact>
        <domain:contact type="tech">945-h-0</domain:contact>
        <domain:authInfo>
          <domain:pw>xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx</domain:pw>
        </domain:authInfo>
      </domain:create>
    </create>
      <extension>
       <idn:data xmlns:idn="urn:ietf:params:xml:ns:idn-1.0">
          <idn:table>Latn</idn:table>
          <idn:uname>domain-with-mācron.kiwi</idn:uname>
       </idn:data>
      </extension>
  </command>
</epp>