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The CA Domain                                (Updated 1993 January 5)

This is an introduction to the CA domain for Canada.  The domain is
intended to be a useful, manageable means to refer to Canadian
computing and communications resources within the worldwide Internet.

The CA domain is registered with the Network Information Center (NIC),
the authority for top-level Internet domains.  CA is the two-letter
code for Canada according to the ISO 3166 standard used for country
domains.  The CA domain administrator is John Demco at the University
of British Columbia.

The remainder of this document describes the history of the CA domain,
its basic structure, the registration process, and instructions on how
to get more information, including an application form.


History

The CA domain was registered with the NIC in May, 1987.  The
registration was organized by CDNnet.  A broadly-based committee was
formed which initially consisted of representatives from CDNnet, the
Defence Research Establishment, NetNorth, and the UUCP community.

During the remainder of 1987, the structure of the namespace was
agreed upon and a registration procedure was devised.  The first
registration was approved early in 1988.

In September, 1988, the Canadian Coordinating Committee for Research
Networking (CCCRN) was formed.  It was composed of representatives
from the National Research Council, CDNnet, the Defence Research
Establishment, and NetNorth.  (CA*net joined CCCRN in 1990.)  The
committee's role was to coordinate research-oriented networking in
Canada, and to represent Canada internationally to such groups as the
Coordinating Committee for Intercontinental Research Networks.  One of
CCCRN's first acts was to ratify the delegation of the CA domain.

Since 1990, the CA domain committee has been expanded to include
representatives from other service providers, notably from the
provincial regional networks.


Domain Structure

In choosing a structure for the Canadian namespace, the main goals
were to use names that make sense to people, and to facilitate the
administration of the namespace.  It was decided to employ the Domain
Name System (DNS) framework together with aspects of the CCITT X.500
directory naming scheme.

The Internet DNS is described in several documents including RFCs 974,
1032, 1034, and 1035.  The domain name space is a hierarchy, and
domains are administrative entities.  These two facts together ensure
that there is a decentralized means for managing the namespace, and
especially for assigning unique names.  Each domain has an individual
who is responsible for the administration of the names within the
domain.  Some of this authority and responsibility may be delegated to
subdomain administrators; this achieves further decentralization.

Two international standards bodies, CCITT and ISO, have collaborated
on an alternative naming scheme.  The X.500 directory service standard
recommends a tree-structured namespace, of which the following is a
subset:
- Subordinate to the root are countries and organizations.
- Subordinate to a country are localities and organizations.
- Subordinate to a locality are localities, organizations, and
  residential persons.
Graphically this can be represented as follows:

                                           root
                                             |
                                    -----------------------
                                    |                     |
                                 country             organization
                                    |
                         -----------------------
                         |                     |
                     locality            organization
                         |
              -----------------------
              |                     |
           locality            organization
              |
      -----------------------
      |                     |
 residential          organization
   person

The CA domain is structured according to Canadian political geography
with entities registered at appropriate levels:
- Second-level subdomains under CA are provincial and territorial
  abbreviations, and the names of national organizations.
- Third-level subdomains are locality names, and provincial and
  territorial organization names.
- Fourth-level subdomains are for local organizations.
- It is expected that fourth-level subdomains will be used for
  individuals too although this has not been decided yet.
Graphically this can be represented as follows:

                                    CA
                                    |
                         -----------------------
                         |                     |
                province/territory    national organization
                         |
              ---------------------------
              |                          |
           locality            provincial/territorial
       (e.g. city, town)          organization
              |
      -----------------------
      |                     |
 residential            municipal
   person             organization

The application form includes guidelines for determining the
appropriate level and name for a new subdomain.


Registration Procedure

Here is a summary of how subdomain applications are handled by the CA
domain committee.

- A committee member receives an application from an organization.
  The member works with the organization as necessary to clean up the
  application, obtain missing information, choose a more appropriate
  name, correct errors, etc.

- The committee member sends the application by e-mail to the address
  "ca-domain-checker@relay.cdnnet.ca" to ensure that it is
  syntactically correct. This step is repeated if necessary until a
  clean result is obtained.

- The committee member sends the application to the committee, along
  with any supporting documentation such as justification for a
  particular requested organizational abbreviation.

- The application is open for committee discussion for at least a
  week.  There may be feedback from the committee member to the
  applicant during this process.

- The subdomain is registered, public archives are updated, DNS
  information is installed if necessary, and the registration is sent
  to the committee.  Other procedures, such as updating the UUCP maps,
  may be triggered.

- The committee member informs the applicant of the decision.


Applying for a Subdomain

Information about the CA domain is available via electronic mail,
anonymous FTP, and gopher.

1. To retrieve CA domain information via electronic mail, specify a
line of the following form:

        index ca-domain
or
        send ca-domain <filename> [<filename> ...]

in the subject line or body of an electronic mail message to the
CDNnet archive server. Send this message to:

        archive-server@relay.CDNnet.CA

or in X.400 format:

        S=archive-server; OU=relay; O=CDNnet; P=cdn; A=telecom.canada; c=CA;

or use this UUCP path:

        ...!ubc-cs!relay.cdnnet.ca!archive-server

Example:

        To: archive-server@relay.CDNnet.CA
        Subject: send ca-domain Introduction Application-form

2. CA domain information is available from a number of FTP sites.  Use
a service such as "archie" to find them, or use ftp.cdnnet.ca as
follows.  Establish an FTP connection to ftp.cdnnet.ca, log in with
the username "anonymous", and specify your e-mail address as the
password.  When logged in, change to the "ca-domain" directory with
the following command:

        cd ca-domain

Individual files can then be retrieved using the "get" command:

        get <remote filename>

For example:

        get Index
        get Introduction
        get Application-form

3. CA domain information is available for your searching and browsing
pleasure in the Nova Scotia Technology Network (NSTN) gopher.  Point
your gopher at

        nstn.ns.ca

If you don't have your own gopher client, telnet to that address and
log in as "fred" to use NSTN's experimental, nonproduction public
access gopher client.  In either case, select _White Pages_ from the
main menu.  Then browse through organizations in the _Canadian
Organizations_ directory, or search on full words (e.g. "macmillan")
using the search menu item.  There are keywords for cities, people,
organizations, and a little paragraph on each entity, so you may be
able to do some creative searching.


John Demco, CA Domain Registrar       E-mail: demco@cs.ubc.ca
Department of Computer Science        Tel: +1 (604) 822 6724
University of British Columbia        Fax: +1 (604) 822 5485
Vancouver, BC, Canada  V6T 1Z2