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The days of .dev domains for testing code are over

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Re: The days of .dev domains for testing code are over

#81

Post by cmroanirgo »

Animats wrote: post #33

OK, so after a few pages of unnecessary history, the story is that Google bought the .dev TLD and uses it only for internal purposes.

Thanks Chrome. I use .dev quite a lot. Looks like I'll be using FFox for development from here on, until they also decide to usurp their position! And then I'll just use lynx.

Of course, I could change my ways and start using a different naming system: I notice a lot of development shops using .local, albeit for same machine dev & testing.

Edit: lol. tried to use 'star'.dev, but it came out in italics!

Re: The days of .dev domains for testing code are over

#82

Post by koliber »

jsmthrowaway wrote: post #43
koliber wrote: post #19

The article outlines two options. There is a third. Lobby google through petitions and collective developer action to surrender their .dev TLD and create an RFC that makes it reserved for developer used, similarly to .example and .test.

Except, as you point out, .example and .test exist (and should have been used for this). What's the technical justification for the third? Remember when APNIC got 1/8 from IANA and had to go test what would happen if they announced 1.2.3.4 to the Internet? Just because something has been done historically doesn't mean we need to ban it entirely from the future.

There is no technical justification. There is a strong culture and habit of using .dev as the development TLD. It has not been codified and accepted formally.

Developers are humans. Technical justification is one of the things that should be considered when making decisions. There are many others.

Developers have not been widely using .example and .test as the spec recommends. They have been using .dev. It makes sense for it to be added as a reserved testing TLD. No one can force Google to do it. We can just petition them and hope that they do the right thing.

There is a lot of goodwill that Google can gain by allowing free use of `.dev`. Even more if they propose a spec to add it to the reserved domains. I would imagine it would be at least $185,000 worth of goodwill.

Re: The days of .dev domains for testing code are over

#83

Post by mickronome »

Kalium wrote: post #30
grawprog wrote: post #29

As much as I agree with not using a public TLD as a dev environment, why the fuck was google allowed to register and privately secure not one but several domains for their own private use? Fuck them. That shouldn't have been allowed, especially for a TLD that's well known to be heavily used. I really dislike allowing domains to be used in such a way. It seems extremely short sighted.

Anyone is allowed to buy any gTLD for any use. As a result, Google was allowed to buy .dev. They then chose to use it for internal use only. Unfortunately, the time to oppose this was long ago when gTLDs were first being debated...

That someone wasn't aware, or involved in a process doesn't make their opinion invalid.

I would like to add that clearly, those that was involved in the process have made a less than perfect decision in allowing .dev to be bought by anyone.

It's been in widespread - informal - use for decades, and the decision to allow it to be sold has now directly affected multiple third parties negatively. If one assumes the people involved in the process knowledge in the area of domain names, they knew this but choose to ignore it for no good reason.

TLD's with widespread historical, albeit informal use should absolutely have been reserved.

Re: The days of .dev domains for testing code are over

#85

Post by CydeWeys »

Animats wrote: post #33

OK, so after a few pages of unnecessary history, the story is that Google bought the .dev TLD and uses it only for internal purposes.

.dev isn't launched yet and we aren't using it for internal purposes. This is a common misconception about .dev that just will not die. It is delegated (will resolve in DNS) but not yet launched (not yet available for registration). Stay tuned for updates.

The "internal purposes" misconception stems from the TLD-wide wildcard DNS entry pointing to 127.0.53.53 that is required by ICANN's Controlled Interruption process for all new gTLDs. For more info see here: https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/name-collision-ro-faqs...

(Source: I'm the lead engineer of Google Registry.)

Re: The days of .dev domains for testing code are over

#86

Post by CydeWeys »

Chaebixi wrote: post #60
TheDong wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> for internal company use. There are no gTLDs intended only for internal company use. There are many that are intended for only a single companyto use them, though externally. For example, the .americanexpress gtld ( https://www.nic.americanexpress/ ) will only provide domains to entities affiliated with american express. Same with .dodge, and .google, and many many others. ICANN handled this quite well -- they let…

> If you're objecting to this now, not back when the program was being formed, you clearly handled this poorly by not being involved in something you care about. > If you don't care and weren't involved, you also don't have the full picture and your outrage very well might be misplaced. That's an unhelpful and unreasonable response. You shouldn't blame people for not being attuned to the activities an obscure bureauc…

You can't un-delegate TLDs once they've been delegated. That breaks the Internet. The creation of a TLD is thus irreversible, and deleting a TLD would cause a lot more harm than it would prevent.

What you can do is transfer the TLD to a different operator, and/or change its registration policies, though all of the existing domains on the TLD need to remain with their existing owners, as domain names are legally treated as property and cannot be confiscated except through due process (like a court seizure following a ruling on illegal activities).

Re: The days of .dev domains for testing code are over

#87

Post by CydeWeys »

dragonwriter wrote: post #61
ekimekim wrote: post #50

Having read https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6761 , I have a use-case which I've seen often but doesn't seem to be covered: What TLD should I use for internal, production domains? ie. names that are only resolvable within my network, but are definitely not "test" domains and calling them .test would generate confusion. Mostly I tend to see companies either inventing an unregistered TLD, often using their own company na…

> What TLD should I use for internal, production domains? The currently safe way is to use a public domain that you own (you could use a distinct subdomain for this, which is not publicly exposed but which is in DNS on your internal network; e.g., intranet.example.com if you own example.com); as you note, this gives a long full domain. > Mostly I tend to see companies either inventing an unregistered TLD, often using…

My colleague has written a draft RFC for this very use case, in fact: https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-wkumari-dnsop-interna...

It's still very much in the early stages though.

Even then, though, you can end up with all sorts of problems during mergers/acquisitions when previously separate intranets end up getting joined, exposing naming conflicts. Ultimately you always need to use a globally unique namespace, so either use a real domain name (guaranteed unique) or do something unique on top of .internal, e.g. .yourcompanyname.internal (still not guaranteed unique, but better).

See also: https://jdebp.eu/FGA/dns-use-domain-names-that-you-own.html

Re: The days of .dev domains for testing code are over

#88

Post by CydeWeys »

vertex-four wrote: post #24
paulgb wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the tl;dr, but why buy a tld for internal use only? Just so nobody else would? (Maybe it's in TFA; I'll admit I didn't read it)

To ensure that nobody else does. Google uses .dev pervasively for projects - if someone were to buy .dev and sell domains in it on the global DNS infrastructure, then myfancynewproject.dev would resolve to something entirely different from within Google than from outside it.

> Google uses .dev pervasively for projects

What are you talking about????

Re: The days of .dev domains for testing code are over

#89

Post by CydeWeys »

delroth wrote: post #39
vertex-four wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To ensure that nobody else does. Google uses .dev pervasively for projects - if someone were to buy .dev and sell domains in it on the global DNS infrastructure, then myfancynewproject.dev would resolve to something entirely different from within Google than from outside it.

> Google uses .dev pervasively for projects Do you have any source for this statement?

There is no source because it's not an accurate statement.

Re: The days of .dev domains for testing code are over

#90

Post by asdgkknio »

niij wrote: post #79
asdgkknio wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Especially something as generic as .dev. I could possibly see Google having a legitimate claim to a .google TLD, but not something like .dev that is in no way limited to Google.

As a side note, Google already owns and uses the .Google TLD.

That's why I mentioned it. I also disapprove of .google, but it's less ridiculous.
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