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This is gonna sound too weird 'cause my basics arent set right... I did read the wikipedia entries, but would appreciate if someone could help my understanind abit...

What really prevents me from setting up an internet machine which say, recognizes all "http://abcde.widget" entries in the browser? yeah yeah, icann regulates all that, but:

(a) what's really stopping me - what "technically" needs to happen for that to work
(b) if i do everything in (a) and dont get permission from icaann, because i JUST want to use if it for a certain group of people on the INTERNET, what settings do they need to have? Meaning, if some ppl in the world are interested in getting to http://weirdsite.widget, what settings do they need to change in their browser? I'm assuming its the DNS.
(c) If the IP addres of MY DNS server is what they're using, can they type a .widget site and reach a location of my choice?
(d) is my assumption correct that i can setup a DNS server with BIND9 and all that and do the above?

Do you guys see some problems with the above?

Thanx!

3 Answers 3

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You can do that. Run your own domain servres, make other people use them, you are done.

in my company, for examlpe, there is a ".local" top level domain that we implement, and as our computers use our own name servers they see them.

So, yes - it all runs down on running your own domain server and point to them.

ICANN basically controls the "official" root name servers for he official root domain - they have the power becasue everyone uses them.

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  • In fact, there are a couple of "alternate" root server networks, including "OpenNIC" and the infamous (and defunct) AlterNIC. OpenNIC has several fun new TLDs. You'll be the only one in town with a .null domain name...
    – chris
    Mar 11, 2010 at 20:20
  • Hehe. yeah, totally forgot abot them. The main problem is - they are fine for fun, but noone serious uses them, so anything there is not.... reachable.
    – TomTom
    Mar 11, 2010 at 20:29
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    But it gives you total geek cred to have tomtom.geek as the url for your vanity domain. To be even more of a badass, you'd want it to be on an IPv6 only server. 2001::ba:da55
    – chris
    Mar 11, 2010 at 21:17
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a) a top-level domain needs to exist and be propagated to all tier 1 DNS servers.

b) you can't do everything in a) without icann - therefore the second part is moot.

c) if you have users resolving to your own DNS server you can do what you like, that would work.

d) Bind 9 will let you do what you setup your own DNS records and let others use it to resolve your servers but it won't help with the first point, that your TLD won't be known outside your server.

Do I see problems, yes, can you ensure that all your users are using your DNS server? if you can force that then why not just point them to your web server in the first place?

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  • The root servers are only root servers because we all use the same hint files. If I use a different list of IPs for root servers, I see a different internet.
    – chris
    Mar 12, 2010 at 1:39
  • Different TLDs, not "different internet".
    – bortzmeyer
    Mar 12, 2010 at 8:11
  • @bortzmeyer: There isn't really an "internet" in the sense of "anything on the internet can get to anything else on the interent." Someone who goes to www.nsa (or whatever they call it) is not likely to be on the same internet as you... Further, I'd say that the internet is what you see, not what your computer sees... NAT, IPv6, etc. The internet is an idea; your internet likely doesn't look much like china's internet.
    – chris
    Mar 12, 2010 at 14:07
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If you setup each clients DNS so that it has an extra search domain (widget in your case) and the DNS server for that search domain is your DNS server, then it should work fine. This is the same thing most people do to internally resolve local machines in DNS, except that you are doing it across the Internet.
The only issue I could see is that your ISP might block incoming port 53(DNS) traffic.

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