Avis aux registraires de l'ACEI - Priorité = Faible - Notes sur les rapports T4
To all Registrars,
Highlights of the changes for Q4, 2008
CIRA is making significant changes this quarter in order to simplify our business processes. Highlights of the most significant changes are:
Changes to the CIRA Registrant agreement process
CIRA has created a new process that allows Registrars to present the CIRA Registrant agreement to your customers without having the Registrant complete the CIRA confirmation process on the CIRA website. The result of the process is the creation of a Registrant profile to which you can subsequently add domain names. The command to create the profile is call CREATE_RANT and you can still request "Change without approval" (CWA) authority when you submit this call. If you have requested CWA authority, the Registrant grants it by simply clicking a token link in email message 16. When they do this, CWA authority is automatically granted. CIRA is releasing this functionality to Registrars for testing with a known bug in the CWA authority portion of the functionality. CIRA will advise you in a subsequent advisory when the bug has been fixed. CIRA supplies function calls that allow you to get the most up-to-date version of the agreement at any time, and also check that you have the current version at any time. Furthermore, the text of the Registrant agreement itself has been dramatically shortened.
CIRA has also simplified the CIRA confirmation process on the CIRA website; eliminating most of the current steps. Registrant are only required to agree to the CIRA Registrant agreement. You may continue to use ENREG_RANT or REGIS_DOM_RANT and have the Registrant go through the confirmation process on the CIRA website, as they do now. The change to how CWA authority is acquired, developed for the CREATE_RANT function, now applies to these function calls as well.
For more information about the new way to create a Registrant profile, see "Displaying the CIRA Registrant agreement (CREATE_RANT)" on page 32 in the "CIRA Programming Guide". To learn about changes to the current CIRA confirmation process, see "Understanding the CIRA confirmation process" on page 48 in the "Web Interface Guide".
Creating a New Manual Change of Administrative Contact Email (MCACE)
CIRA has created a new, simplified Manual Change of Administrative Contact Email (MCACE) process which features:
- The new process is only used to change the Administrative Contact email address
- Two new, greatly simplified, forms - one for individual and one for non-individual Registrants
- The forms are in a fillable PDF format that can be completed electronically. Once completed, Registrants print the form, sign it, and have their witness sign it. This will reduce current problems associated with illegible handwriting
- The Witness Declaration will only need to be signed by someone who knows the Registrant well enough to verify that the statements made by the Registrant on the form are true. The witness will not need to be a professional or a member of a designated group. (i.e. now it could be a family member, colleague, friend etc).
- Registrants will no longer be required to list all the domain names associated with that particular Registrant profile on the MCACE form
- The form is scanned and the resulting file is uploaded to CIRA via the Registrar web interface instead of being printed and faxed to CIRA
- If CIRA requires additional documents, CIRA can set a 10 business day timer for the MCACE to expire. Otherwise MCACE requests will not expire
In order to transition from the old MCAC process to the new one, CIRA will convert any current MCAC requests (that are still active as of December 9, 2008) into MCACE requests. You may fax any outstanding MCAC forms to CIRA in support of these requests. CIRA will continue to accept the old MCAC forms until midnight on December 31, 2008.
For more information, see “Manual Change of Administrative Contact Email” on page 74 in the “Web Interface Guide”.
Supporting the IPv6 protocol for name servers
CIRA now supports both IPv4 and IPv6 IP address types for name servers. For more details, see “Entering name server data” on page 43 in the “CIRA Programming Guide”.
Developing New Domain name availability check functionality
CIRA is introducing two new ways to check the availability of a domain name. Both of the new ways are faster than the current VALID_DOM function. See the topic "DOMAIN:CHECK EPP" on page 34 and the topic "DOMAIN CHECK TELNET" on page 43 in the "Technical Reference Manual"
Implementing business simplification
In our efforts to simplify our business processes, and due to low levels of use by Registrars, CIRA is no longer supporting the following:
- The “dailies” process
- The old Manual Change of Administrative Contact (MCAC) process
- The Special Change of Administrative Contact (SCAC) process. (As of December 9, 2008, existing SCAC processes will be allowed to be completed, but no new SCAC requests will be able to be intitiated)
- The “Bounced Email” and “Invalid Email” processes
- The “Do not renew” process
Refer to the technical documents in subsequent sections of this advisory for more information.
Quarterly Release Conference Call
In order to better serve the needs of the CIRA Certified Registrar community, CIRA will be holding a conference call on:
DATE: November 18, 2008
TIME: From 13:00 to 14:00 (the call will begin at 13:00 sharp, Ottawa time)
CIRA is holding this conference call to provide Registrars with an additional opportunity to ask questions and seek clarification on matters relating to this advisory or other matters of interest. An agenda is provided below:
| AGENDA | |
| 13:00 - 13:05 | Welcome |
| 13:05 - 13:15 | Q4 Release updates |
| 13:15 - 14:00 | Registrar open questions |
English and French speaking Registrars are invited to participate. Questions will be answered in the language in which they are asked.
The call may end at an earlier time if business is concluded before 14:00. As a gesture of courtesy to all Registrars, and to take full advantage of your participation, PLEASE DIAL IN BY 13:00. This will help ensure that similar questions are not raised several times.
Your help is needed to ensure that an adequate number of lines are available to all participants. Please reply to regsupport@cira.ca by November 17, 2008 to obtain a dial-up number and access code if you wish to participate or require additional information.
Testing system changes
Until all updates to the systems become available at the CIRA production site, on December 9, 2008, you will be able to access and test the new functionality using the test environment. The testing period for this release is between October 30, 2008 and December 8, 2008. The links to the testing sites are as follows:
WEB:
https://rarweb.test.cira.ca/rars
XML:
https://rarxml.test.cira.ca/rars
Please note that the SSL certificates used for these sites are self-signed (not signed by an accredited certificate authority), and as such will produce a warning in most web browsers.
The database supporting the testing site is a duplicate of the production database as of January 2, 2008. Registrar account passwords and roles will appear as they did in production on that date.
QUARTERLY RELEASE DETAILS
The following amended legal documents are currently available on the Registrar web interface at https://rarweb.test.cira.ca/rars:
- Registrant Agreement, Version 1.9
- Registrar Agreement, Version 1.10
- Manual Change of Administrative Contact Email Rules and Procedures, Version 1.0
- MCACE Form for Individuals
- MCACE Form for Non-Individuals
The above documents are effective December 9, 2008
The following system emails have been edited because of changes to accommodate the simplified CIRA confirmation process and the new CREATE_RANT function:
- all versions of Message 16 and 17
Here is an example of all versions of 16:
- Message_16_nd.html (no domain name - English), Message_16_nd.txt
- Message_16_nd_fr.html (no domain name - French), Message_16_nd_fr.txt
- Message_16_sd.html (single domain name - English), Message_16_sd.txt
- Message_16_sd_fr.html (single domain name - French), Message_16_sd_fr.txt
- Message_16_md.html (multiple domain names - English), Message_16_md.txt
- Message_16_md_fr.html (multiple domain names - French), Message_16_md_fr.txt
Changing how WHOIS privacy is requested by non-individual Registrants causes the following emails to no longer be sent by the CIRA system:
- All versions of Message 267, 269, 272, 270, 271, 272, 273.
The following new emails have been added to the system for the new MCACE request.
- Message_278_nd.html, Message_278_nd.txt, Message_278_nd_fr.html, Message_278_nd_fr.txt
- Message_280_nd.html, Message_280_nd.txt, Message_280_nd_fr.html, Message_280_nd_fr.txt
- Message_281_nd.html, Message_281_nd.txt, Message_281_nd_fr.html, Message_281_nd_fr.txt
- Message_282_nd.html, Message_282_nd.txt, Message_282_nd_fr.html, Message_282_nd_fr.txt
- Message_285_nd.html, Message_285_nd.txt, Message_285_nd_fr.html, Message_285_nd_fr.txt
The following emails have been edited due to the elimination of the MCACE and the SCAC processes: #251, #253, #254, #255.
The following email has been edited to resolve a customer service issue: #149.
3. Publication of the "Web Interface Guide" (Version 2.1)
The following changes have been made to the Q4 2008 release of this document:
- The topic “Manual Change of Administrative Contact Email” on page 74 has been added to the document
- The topic “Manual Change of Administrative Contact (MCAC)” has been deleted
- The topic “Special Change of Administrative Contact (SCAC)” has been deleted
- The topic “View and update daily corrections” has been deleted
- The Manual Change of Administrative Contact Emails (MCACE) has been added to Table 2: “Other active processes available on the Registrar’s 'Home' page” on page 14
- A note has been added to the topic "Create a Registrant profile" on page 32 to indicate that it is also possible to present the CIRA Registrant agreement to the Registrant on the Registrar's website, on behalf of CIRA, but that this request cannot be initiated from the Registrar web interface
- he topic "Understanding critical changes" on page 67 has been edited to explain that you should use the new Manual Change of Administrative Contact Email (MCACE) request to make critical changes when:
- the Registrant’s Administrative Contact email address no longer functions
- the Registrant no longer has their CIRA Registrant user account and password
- you do not have “Change without approval” (CWA) authority
- The MCAC user role has been replaced by the MCACE user role. See “Manual Change of Administrative Contact Email (MCACE) role” on page 129
- Information about the MCAC request triggering a critical change of information has been deleted from Table 70: “Process types available in a 'transactions report'” on page 112
- MCAC (Expedited) has been removed from the list of items available in a summary deposit account statement. See “Understanding the summary activity report” on page 93
- MCAC (Expedited) has been removed from the list of items available in a detailed deposit account statement. See “Understanding the detailed deposit account statement” on page 115
- The topic “Understanding the CIRA confirmation process” on page 48 has been edited to reflect simplification of the CIRA confirmation process.
- The topic “Acquiring CWA Authority” on page 68 has been edited to reflect the changes about how “Change without approval” (CWA) authority is acquired
- The topic “Understanding how CWA Authority affects other transaction requests” on page 69 has been edited. References to MCAC and SCAC functions have been removed and a reference to the new MCACE request has been added
- The new role “Manual Change of Administrative Contact Email (MCACE)” role has been added. See “User Roles” on page 125
- In the topic “User Roles” on page 125, the following roles have been deleted:
- Update daily corrections role
- Invalid email addresses / bounced emails role
- Manage Change of Administrative Contact (MCAC)
- Special Change of Administrative Contact (SCAC)
- In the topic “User Roles” the permitted menu item “Suppress the CIRA 7-day renewal email” has been deleted from Table 82: “Permitted menu items for the 'Create/renew registrations' role” on page 128
- The “Add a To Be Released domain name” has been edited to clarify the behavior of the rate limits during a TBR session. The actual code has not changed, only the documentation. See “Rate limits and restrictions” on page 46
- The following topics have been edited to indicate that you may enter both IPv4 and IPv6 name server data:
- “Create a Registrant profile and add a domain name” on page 17
- “Add a domain name” on page 36
- “Add a conflicting domain name” on page 37
- “Add a municipal domain name” on page 41
- “Add a To Be Released domain name” on page 45
- “Update domain/DNS addresses” on page 73
- The “Privacy off date” has been deleted from Table 34: “Complete, private WHOIS information” on page 60
- The email ecac@cira.ca was replaced by regsupport@cira.ca in the topic “Changes requiring Registrant approval” on page 68
- “Suppress the CIRA 7-day renewal email" (NRN - Request to not renew a domain name) was deleted from the applicable processes that can be cancelled using the "Cancel an active process" request. See Table 42: "Cancelling an active process, applicable requests" on page 84
- The topic "Registrant privacy protection for CIRA WHOIS" on page 11 has been edited to reflect the fact that non-individuals no longer can request WHOIS privacy during the CIRA confirmation process or from the Registrant interface. They must do so by submitting a letter or sending an email to CIRA, explaining how they meet the criteria. Individual Registrants can still toggle their privacy status on or off using the Registrant interface.
- The topic “Invalid email address warnings” has been deleted
- The topics "Generate a bounced emails report", "Understanding the bounced emails report data" and "Delete bounced emails report data" have been deleted
- The following items have been deleted from Table 1: “Current statuses available on the Registrar’s 'Home' page” on page 13:
- Daily corrections
- Invalid email addresses
- The “Request not to renew process has been deleted from Table 2: “Other active processes available on the Registrar’s 'Home' page” on page 14
4. Publication of the Technical Reference Manual (Version 2.2)
The following changes have been made on the Q4 2008 release of this document:
- The function CREATE_RANT has been added. This is similar to ENREG_RANT in that it results in the creation of the Registrant profile, except that if you use CREATE_RANT, in conjunction with GET_AGREEMENT and CHECK_AGREEMENT, you present and have the Registrant agree to the CIRA Registrant agreement on your site, rather than the Registrant having to come to the CIRA site in order to agree to the agreement. See "CREATE_RANT" on page 23
- The function GET_AGREEMENT has been added, see “GET_AGREEMENT” on page 52
- The function CHECK_AGREEMENT has been added, see “CHECK_AGREEMENT” on page 19
- As a faster alternative to VALID_DOM, CIRA now provides a domain name availability check over EPP. This functionality allows you to check for the availability of multiple domain names. See "DOMAIN:CHECK EPP" on page 34
- CIRA also provides a domain name availability check over Telnet. See “DOMAIN CHECK TELNET” on page 43
- The function RAR_REPORT_RANT has been added. This report allows you to provide a Registrant number to the CIRA system and find out what processes (if any) are active for that Registrant. It can be used as a more efficient alternative to the RAR_REPORT_ACT (activity report). See "RAR_REPORT_RANT" on page 105
- The functions “ADD_MCAC”, “CANCEL_MCAC”, “MCAC_DETAIL” and “MCAC_LIST” have been deleted
- The topics “MCAC process status” and “MCAC sort criteria” have been deleted
- The functions “ADD_SCAC”, “CANCEL_SCAC”, “SCAC_DETAIL” and “SCAC_LIST” have been deleted
- The topics “SCAC process status” and “SCAC sort criteria” have been deleted
- In the topic “Street labels” on page 181, the following were deleted from the list of functions that require the parameter table Street labels:
- ADD_MCAC, MCAC_DETAIL
- ADD_SCAC, SCAC_DETAIL
- In the topic “Provincial labels” on page 175, the following were deleted from the list of functions that require the parameter table Provincial labels:
- ADD_MCAC, MCAC_DETAIL
- ADD_SCAC, SCAC_DETAIL
- In the topic “Country codes” on page 158, the following were deleted from the list of functions that require the parameter table Country codes:
- ADD_MCAC, MCAC_DETAIL
- ADD_SCAC, SCAC_DETAIL
- In the topic “Statement item descriptions” on page 180, the item MCAC (Expedited) has been removed from the table of valid values
- The functions “DELETE_BNCE”, “REPORT_BNCE”, “REMOVE_IEA” and “REPORT_IEA” have been deleted
- The function DO_NOT_RENEW_DOM has been deleted
- In the topic "Process types" on page 174, the function "REPORT_BNCE" has been removed from the list of functions that require the parameter table of valid values. Also, "NRN - Request not to renew a domain name" has been removed from the process type valid values
- The topic “Email message list” has been deleted
- The following functions have been edited to indicate that both IPv4 and IPv6 addresses are supported:
- “GET_DOM_INFO” on page 58
- “REGIS_DOM” on page 113
- “REGIS_DOM_RANT” on page 117
- “REGIS_TBR_DOM” on page 125
- “UPD_DOM_INFO” on page 147
- The parameter valid values table “Registrant report sort” has been added. See “Registrant report sort” on page 179
- The parameter valid values table "Registrant report process data" has been added. See Table 121: "Registrant report process valid values" on page 178
- The parameter valid values table "Domain check reasons" has been added. See Table 113: "Domain check reasons valid values" on page 170
- The response parameter 'privacy_off_date' has been deleted from the RAR_WHOIS function. See Table 78: "RAR_WHOIS response parameters" on page 109
- The following CREATE_RANT error messages have been added to the document: 01427, 01428, 01429, 01430, 01431, 01432, 01433. See Table 130: "Error codes" on page 191
- The following CHECK_ARGEEMENT error messages have been added to the document: 12007, 12008, 12009, 12010. See Table 130: "Error codes" on page 191
- The following IPv6 error messages have been added: 12001, 12003, 12004, 12005, 12006, 12011. See Table 130: “Error codes” on page 191
- The following RAR_REPORT_RANT error messages have been added: 01179, 01153, 09013, 01260, 09017, 09021, 09061. See Table 130: “Error codes” on page 191
- The following SCAC error messages have been deleted from the document: 09120, 09121, 09122, 09123, 09124, 09125
5. Publication of the CIRA Programming Guide (Version 2.2)
The following changes have been made to the Q4 2008 release of this document:
- When using the new CREATE_RANT function, you must be aware of the requirements that CIRA has for displaying the CIRA Registrant agreement to your customers. See "Displaying the CIRA Registrant agreement (CREATE_RANT)" on page 32
- The topic "Options for creating a new registration" on page 29 has been edited to include the new CREATE_RANT function
- The topic "Understanding Registrant profiles" on page 30 has been edited to include the new CREATE_RANT function and to clarify the validation rules for both CREATE_RANT and ENREG_RANT
- The topic "Understanding the CIRA confirmation process" on page 31 has been edited to reflect simplification of the CIRA confirmation process.
- CIRA now supports both IPv4 and IPv6 addresses. See the new topic "Entering name server data" on page 43
- The topic "Registrant privacy protection for CIRA WHOIS" on page 21 has been edited to reflect the fact that non-individuals no longer can request WHOIS privacy during the CIRA confirmation process or from the Registrant interface. They must do so by submitting a letter or sending an email to CIRA, explaining how they meet the criteria. Individual Registrants can still toggle their privacy status on or off using the Registrant interface.
- The topic “Comparing the MCAC process to the SCAC process” has been deleted
- The topic “Manually Changing Administrative Contact Information (MCAC)” has been deleted
- The topic “Performing a special change in Administrative Contact (SCAC)” has been deleted
- The topics “Bounced emails report” and “Invalid email address report” have been deleted
- The topic “Suppress the CIRA 7-day renewal notice” has been deleted
- In the topic "Cancelling an active process" the process DO_NOT_RENEW_DOM (NRN) has been deleted from Table 28: "Cancelling an active process, applicable functions" on page 61
- The topic “Understanding daily corrections” has been deleted
- The topic “Understanding critical changes” on page 53, has been edited to explain that you should use the new Manual Change of Administrative Contact Email (MCACE) request to make critical changes when:
- the Registrant’s Administrative Contact email address no longer functions
- the Registrant no longer has their CIRA Registrant user account and password
- you do not have “Change without approval” (CWA) authority
- The topic “Working with the ‘cwa’ parameter” has been edited to reflect the changes about how “Change without approval” (CWA) authority is acquired. See “Acquiring CWA authority” on page 54
- The topic “Understanding how CWA authority affects other transaction requests” on page 55 has been edited. References to MCAC and SCAC functions have been removed and a reference to the new MCACE request has been added
- The topic “Updating contact information” on page 56 has been edited. References to MCAC and SCAC functions have been removed and a reference to the new MCACE request has been added
- References to the “Invalid email address report” and the “Bounce email report” have been removed from the topic “Types of Registrar reports” on page 63
- In the topic “Understanding Registrar roles” on page 23, the following roles have been deleted:
- RAR_MCAC role
- SCAC_RAR role
- DLY_RAR role
- MANAGE_BOUNCE role
- In topic Registrar roles, the CREATE_RANT and VERIF_CREATE_RANT functions have been added to (and the DO_NOT_REMOVE_DOM function has been deleted from) Table 10: “REGIST_RANT_DOM role” on page 25
- In the topic Registrar roles, the GET_AGREEMENT and CHECK_AGREEMENT functions have been added to Table 9: “PUBLIC_RAR role” on page 24
- The topic Understanding TBR functions has been edited to clarify the behavior of the rate limits during a TBR session. The actual code has not changed, only the documentation. See “Rate limits and restrictions” on page 40
- The topic “How to register a municipal domain name” on page 37 has been edited to be generic enough to apply to the Registrar having used either ENREG_RANT or CREATE_RANT to create the profile for this process.
- The email ecac@cira.ca was replaced by regsupport@cira.ca in the topic “Changes requiring Registrant approval” on page 54
- The "Add a To Be Released domain name" has been edited to clarify the behavior of the rate limits during a TBR session. The actual code has not changed, only the documentation. See "Rate limits and restrictions" on page 40
6. Publication of the "Glossary - Glossaire" (Version 1.8)
The following change has been made to the document for the Q4 2008 release of this document:
- A new term “Manual Change of Administrative Contact Email (MCACE)” has been added
- The term “Manual Change of Administrative Contact” has been deleted
- A new term «Modification manuelle de l'adresse courriel du contact administratif (MMACP)» has been added
- The term “Special Change of Administrative Contact (SCAC)” has been deleted
- The term «Modification manuelle des renseignments relatifs à la personne-ressource en matières de services administratifs (MMPRA)» has been deleted
- The terms «Modification spéciale des renseignements relatifs à la personne-ressource en matières de services administratifs” (MSPRA)» and «MSPRA» were deleted
- The term “Confirmation process” was edited
- The term «Processus de confirmation» was edited
- The terms “Dailies” and “Daily Corrections” were deleted
- The terms «Quotidiennes» and «Corrections quotidiennes» were deleted
- The terms “Intervention Management System (IMS)” and “IMS” and “IMS ID” have been deleted
- The terms «Système de gestion des intervention (SGI)» and «SGI» and «ID du SGI» have been deleted
- The terms “Bounced email” and «Courriel non livré» have been deleted
- The terms “CIRA business days (CBD)” and «Jours opérationnels de l’ACEI (JOA)» have been deleted
- The terms “Business Days” and «Jours opérationnels» have been edited
- The terms “Do not renew” and “Non-Renewal (NRN) process” have been deleted
- The terms «Ne pas renouveler» and «Processus de non-renouvellement (NRN)» have been deleted
- The terms “IPv6” and “Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) address space” have been added
- The terms «IPv6» and «Espaces d'adresse Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6)» have been added
- The terms “Invalid email address” and «Adresse de courriel non valide» have been deleted
The glossary defines terms, abbreviations, and acronyms used in CIRA documentation. The terms are arranged alphabetically and are listed in both English and French.
7. No release of municipal domain names
At this time, CIRA is not releasing any municipal domain names in accordance with the “Registration of Municipal Names Policy, Rules and Procedures”.
Refer to the document “Registration of Municipal Names Policy, Rules and Procedures (Version 1.4 – Effective Date: June 13, 2006), located at http://www.cira.ca/registrars-documents/ for more information.
Before November 6, 2008, if you want to preview the documentation referred to in this advisory, you need to login at the Registrar web interface: https://rarweb.test.cira.ca/rars. The public links will not become active until November 6, 2008.
CIRA will continue to identify operational improvements and proceed with implementation of solutions that facilitate Registrant, Registrar, and Registry processes. Quarterly operations releases, such as this one, will help ensure that improvements are communicated in a consistent and predictable fashion.
Please write to regsupport@cira.ca if you need additional information or have any questions about this advisory.
The next quarterly release Registrar advisory will be published on February 5, 2009
