.test

Last updated
.test
Introduced1999
TLD type Reserved top-level domain
StatusReserved to prevent conflict and confusion
Intended useIn documentation or for internal testing
StructureThose using it for testing can use it in any desired structure
Documents RFC   2606

.test is a reserved top-level domain intended for usage in software testing. It is guaranteed to never be registered into the Internet. [1] [2]

Along with .test, there are 11 other reserved test domains: .测试, .परीक्षा, .испытание, .테스트, .טעסט, .測試, .آزمایشی, .பரிட்சை, .δοκιμή, .إختبار, and .テスト. [3]

Reserved DNS names

In June 1999, the Internet Engineering Task Force reserved the DNS labels .example , .invalid , .localhost , and .test so that they may not be installed into the root zone of the Domain Name System. [1]

These top-level domain names were reserved to reduce the likelihood of conflict and confusion. [2] This allows their usage for either documentation purposes or in local testing scenarios. "IANA.org states Domains which are described as registered to IANA or ICANN on policy grounds are not available for registration or transfer, with the exception of country-name.info domains. These domains are available for release by the ICANN Governmental Advisory Committee Secretariat." [4]

Related Research Articles

The Domain Name System (DNS) is a hierarchical and distributed naming system for computers, services, and other resources in the Internet or other Internet Protocol (IP) networks. It associates various information with domain names assigned to each of the associated entities. Most prominently, it translates readily memorized domain names to the numerical IP addresses needed for locating and identifying computer services and devices with the underlying network protocols. The Domain Name System has been an essential component of the functionality of the Internet since 1985.

A top-level domain (TLD) is one of the domains at the highest level in the hierarchical Domain Name System of the Internet after the root domain. The top-level domain names are installed in the root zone of the name space. For all domains in lower levels, it is the last part of the domain name, that is, the last non empty label of a fully qualified domain name. For example, in the domain name www.example.com, the top-level domain is .com. Responsibility for management of most top-level domains is delegated to specific organizations by the ICANN, an Internet multi-stakeholder community, which operates the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA), and is in charge of maintaining the DNS root zone.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Domain name</span> Identification string in the Internet

In the Internet, a domain name is a string that identifies a realm of administrative autonomy, authority or control. Domain names are often used to identify services provided through the Internet, such as websites, email services and more. As of December 2023, 359.8 million domain names had been registered. Domain names are used in various networking contexts and for application-specific naming and addressing purposes. In general, a domain name identifies a network domain or an Internet Protocol (IP) resource, such as a personal computer used to access the Internet, or a server computer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Internet Assigned Numbers Authority</span> Standards organization overseeing IP addresses

The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) is a standards organization that oversees global IP address allocation, autonomous system number allocation, root zone management in the Domain Name System (DNS), media types, and other Internet Protocol–related symbols and Internet numbers.

A domain name registry is a database of all domain names and the associated registrant information in the top level domains of the Domain Name System (DNS) of the Internet that enables third party entities to request administrative control of a domain name. Most registries operate on the top-level and second-level of the DNS.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Root name server</span> Name server for the DNS root zone

A root name server is a name server for the root zone of the Domain Name System (DNS) of the Internet. It directly answers requests for records in the root zone and answers other requests by returning a list of the authoritative name servers for the appropriate top-level domain (TLD). The root name servers are a critical part of the Internet infrastructure because they are the first step in resolving human-readable host names into IP addresses that are used in communication between Internet hosts.

The DNS root zone is the top-level DNS zone in the hierarchical namespace of the Domain Name System (DNS) of the Internet.

The Domain Name System Security Extensions (DNSSEC) are a suite of extension specifications by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) for securing data exchanged in the Domain Name System (DNS) in Internet Protocol (IP) networks. The protocol provides cryptographic authentication of data, authenticated denial of existence, and data integrity, but not availability or confidentiality.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Internationalized domain name</span> Type of Internet domain name

An internationalized domain name (IDN) is an Internet domain name that contains at least one label displayed in software applications, in whole or in part, in non-Latin script or alphabet or in the Latin alphabet-based characters with diacritics or ligatures. These writing systems are encoded by computers in multibyte Unicode. Internationalized domain names are stored in the Domain Name System (DNS) as ASCII strings using Punycode transcription.

In computer networking, localhost is a hostname that refers to the current computer used to access it. The name localhost is reserved for loopback purposes. It is used to access the network services that are running on the host via the loopback network interface. Using the loopback interface bypasses any local network interface hardware.

In Internet networking, a private network is a computer network that uses a private address space of IP addresses. These addresses are commonly used for local area networks (LANs) in residential, office, and enterprise environments. Both the IPv4 and the IPv6 specifications define private IP address ranges.

A country code top-level domain (ccTLD) is an Internet top-level domain generally used or reserved for a country, sovereign state, or dependent territory identified with a country code. All ASCII ccTLD identifiers are two letters long, and all two-letter top-level domains are ccTLDs.

The domain name arpa is a top-level domain (TLD) in the Domain Name System (DNS) of the Internet. It is used predominantly for the management of technical network infrastructure. Prominent among such functions are the subdomains in-addr.arpa and ip6.arpa, which provide namespaces for reverse DNS lookup of IPv4 and IPv6 addresses, respectively.

example.com Domain name reserved for documentation purposes and as an example of the use of domain names

The domain names example.com, example.net, example.org, and example.edu are second-level domain names in the Domain Name System of the Internet. They are reserved by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) at the direction of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) as special-use domain names for documentation purposes. The domain names are used widely in books, tutorials, sample network configurations, and generally as examples for the use of domain names. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) operates web sites for these domains with content that reflects their purpose.

The name example is reserved by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) as a domain name that may not be installed as a top-level domain in the Domain Name System (DNS) of the Internet.

The name localhost is reserved by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) as a domain name label that may not be installed as a top-level domain in the Domain Name System (DNS) of the Internet.

The name invalid is reserved by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) as a domain name that may not be installed as a top-level domain in the Domain Name System (DNS) of the Internet.

The domain name .local is a special-use domain name reserved by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) so that it may not be installed as a top-level domain in the Domain Name System (DNS) of the Internet. As such it is similar to the other special domain names, such as .localhost. However, .local has since been designated for use in link-local networking, in applications of multicast DNS (mDNS) and zero-configuration networking (zeroconf) so that DNS service may be established without local installations of conventional DNS infrastructure on local area networks.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">IPv6 address</span> Label to identify a network interface of a computer or other network node

An Internet Protocol Version 6 address is a numeric label that is used to identify and locate a network interface of a computer or a network node participating in a computer network using IPv6. IP addresses are included in the packet header to indicate the source and the destination of each packet. The IP address of the destination is used to make decisions about routing IP packets to other networks.

References

  1. 1 2 Leiba, Barry (2009). "The Good and the Bad of Top-Level Domains". IEEE Internet Computing. IEEE. 13 (1): 69. doi:10.1109/MIC.2009.23. ISSN   1941-0131. S2CID   260466. As a way to avoid this problem, the IETF published Best Current Practice (BCP) 32 in 1999. BCP 32, also known as RFC 2606, defines four reserved TLDs — .test, .example, .invalid, and .localhost ... that are guaranteed never to be assigned so that researchers and developers can always use them for example and testing purposes without concern.
  2. 1 2 D. Eastlake; A. Panitz (June 1999). Reserved Top Level DNS Names. Network Working Group. doi: 10.17487/RFC2606 . BCP 32. RFC 2606.Best Common Practice. Updated by RFC  6761.
  3. "IANA — Root Zone Database". www.iana.org. Retrieved 2022-05-07.
  4. "IANA-managed Reserved Domains".