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Reverse DNS delegation

APNIC provides reverse delegation services to members and non-members that hold a block of IP addresses.

IANA delegates reverse DNS zones within the centrally-administered 'in-addr.arpa' and ip6.arpa zones.

Access to reverse DNS is typically via whois queries. The APNIC Whois Database is used as the management database for producing the DNS zones so it can provide the information for each delegated IPv4 and IPv6 range registered in the reverse DNS.

The information is stored in RPSL format as domain objects. The name of each domain is the reverse DNS zone under in-addr.arpa or ip6.arpa. The nserver attributes in each domain object define the officially-delegated DNS nameservers (the NS in DNS zone contents).

Any organization that has received IP addresses from APNIC should register their reverse domain with APNIC so that their reverse DNS works globally.


Responsibilities

Members
  • Being familiar with APNIC procedures
  • Ensuring that addresses are reverse-mapped
  • Maintaining nameservers for allocations (to minimize pollution of the DNS)
APNIC
  • Managing reverse delegations of address block distributed by APNIC
  • Processing members requests for reverse delegations of network allocations
What is reverse DNS?

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Why bother?

  • Service denial
    That only allow access when fully reverse delegated eg., anonymous ftp
  • Diagnostics
    Assisting in trace routes etc.
  • Spam identification
  • Registration
    Responsibility as a member and Local IR

Note: APNIC only registers reverse delegations and is not involved in the domain name registration system.