25 Extensible Provisioning Protocol (EPP)

Prototypical answer:

EPP server uses strict standard protocol, as specified in RFC 5730 (Extensible Provisioning Protocol), RFC 5731 (Domain Name Mapping), RFC 5732 (Host Mapping), RFC 5733 (Contact Mapping), RFC 5734 (Transport over TCP), RFC 3915 (Domain Registry Grace Period Mapping) and RFC 4310 (Domain Name System Security Extensions Mapping).

Server is listening on port 700, SSL encryption required. Number of connections is limited to 4 per registrar. Registrar is provided only to perform command on its own objects⁄domains, it is totally not possible to get information or even change data of other registrars. That is only possible using Whois service.

Brief EPP command summary:
(for further information please refer to RFC standards above, the server is fully compliant, this is just brief specification)


General requests

Hello – get basic information about the registry, and as a side effect is suitable to be used as keep alive request.

Login – required before processing any request specified below, mandatory to specify registrar username and
password as additional authentication (however, the most important security feature is IP filter and SSL encryption,
password is the third and last security measure).

Logout – explicitly end current session created by previous Login request. It is not required to call logout, it is automatically called after closing TCP session.

Poll – gets the next message from the register. Such messages contains domain deletion notifies, transfer notice for current domain registrar in case of request or cancel transfer, and transfer notice for new domain registrar in case of approve or reject transfer request. There could be some other messages in the future.

Ack – acknowledge the receipt of the Poll message indentified by its unique ID. It is necessary to acknowledge the messages in order to get next, more recent messages.


Host requests

Create – host objects are representation of the nameservers to be used in domain registrations. If the host is inside our zone, it is necessary to provide IPv4 and optionally IPv6 glue records.

Update – possible to change glue records of the nameserver, or add⁄remove client prohibition statuses.

Delete – removal of the host from the registry, only possible if the host is not used in any existing domain registration.

Info – returns all available information about the host object, particularly host name, glue records and statuses.

Check – if the specified host is or is not registered.


Contact requests

Create – for registering domain names it is necessary first to create contact handles for registrant, admin, tech and billing contacts. Registrar has to choose ID for new contact and fill required fields: name, street, city, postal code, country code, voice, email and optionally org, state⁄province and fax. Authinfo and disclose fields are not used.

Update – change information associated with particular contact ID. It is possible to modify fields specified in Create request. It is also possible to add⁄remove user
statuses.

Delete – removal of the contact from the registry. It is only possible when the contact is not used as contact in any registered domain name. And be notified, that for archiving purposes the contact will be still internally stored in registry.

Check – just check if specified contact ID is not assigned to existing contact.

Info – get information about contact with specified ID. Returns all information about the contact specified in Create request and additionally returns also the dates and registrar IDs of creation and last modification.


Domain requests

Create – register new domain name. Compulsory to specify contact information for registrant, admin, billing and tech contacts. AuthInfo must be also filled. Nameservers are necessary for domain to be generated into the zone, but not necessarily required for domain registration. For use of DNSSEC please read RFC 4310, this extension is fully supported.

Update – enables registrars to change domain name data, particularly contacts, nameservers, and additionally also authInfo or dnsKeys. As a result there always has to be one contact of each type (registrant, admin, billing and technical).

Update⁄restore – grace period mapping uses restore command to ʹundeleteʹ domain name. It is possible to do so in two weeks after the domain was deleted.

Renew – explicit domain renewal, extends domain registration of specified number of years. It is not possible for the final expirey date to be more than 10 years from the current date.

Transfer – for transferring domain administration between two registrars. It is possible to request or cancel domain name transfer. Current registrar of the domain must confirm the request using approve transfer command. If current registrar rejects the request with reject transfer command, the transfer is not processed. If the transfer is not rejected during 5 days, the transfer is automatically approved.


Delete – explicitly removes domain from the zone and changes status of the domain to pendingDelete and redemption status to redemptionPeriod. The domain will be deleted two weeks after requesting Delete. In these two weeks it is possible to Restore the domain name.

Check – informs registrars if particular domain(s) (it is possible to check up to 10 domains at once) is available for registration, that means domain is not already registered and not reserved. Although the non-error result means that it is valid domain name.

Info – returns information about the domain name – all the fields in Create request and dates and registrar ids of creation, last modification, last transfer and expiration of this domain name.

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