Tuesday 10 August 2010

Taiwan's idn ccTLDs

Taiwan's idn ccTLDs 台湾 and 台灣 were entered into the Root Name Servers on 14th July 2010. This does not though mean that they are now live. Taiwan's Registry Name Servers have not yet been set up to resolve 台湾 and 台灣.

The current situation is that a lookup of 台灣 gives the result "Non-Existent Domain". A lookup of 台湾 gives more interesting results. The Registry Name Servers are using DNAME to map 台湾 to 台灣 which, currently, is a non-existent domain.

I used www.simpledns.com/lookup-dg.aspx to perform a DNS delegation trace of 台湾 and 台灣 to determine the current state of Taiwan's Registry Name Servers. I used Taiwan's National Central University's web addresses for my tests. Their working addresses are:
  1. Simplified Chinese 国立中央大学.tw
  2. Traditional Chinese 國立中央大學.tw
For my tests I used the 台湾 and 台灣 forms of these addresses. In order to use the DNS delegation trace service one must use the punycode form of the addresses, as follows:
  1. xn--fiqr8sswb1a55zxr2e.xn--kprw13d is the punycode form of 国立中央大学.台湾
  2. xn--fiqy9slvb1a540au81e.xn--kpry57d is the punycode form of 國立中央大學.台灣
I am only testing for correct resolution of the idn ccTLDs 台湾 and 台灣 so which Taiwanese web address I use is not important. The two addresses above are currently dead links but sometime in the near future when Taiwan's Registry Name Servers are setup they will spring into life. Well, they will spring into life if the National Central University puts the addresses into their local Domain Name Servers.