End of Life Notice for Interim Trust Anchor Repository (ITAR)

The Interim Trust Anchor Repository is now being retired from service. Starting today, no new listings will be accepted by the service. Later this month, existing listings will be removed; with the entire service turned off early next year.

Since the beginning of 2009, ICANN has operated a service known as the Interim Trust Anchor Repository (ITAR). This allowed top-level domain operators who use DNSSEC to publish their trust anchor in absence of a signed DNS root zone. On 15 July 2010, the DNS root zone was signed, and in the following months TLD operators have transitioned to using it. With the last remaining TLDs transitioning to the signed root zone, the ITAR is no longer required.

The service was a successful bottom-up collaboration with the Internet community. ICANN was asked to operate the service to help DNSSEC adoption during its initial phases. During its lifetime, the ITAR supported over a hundred listing requests for dozens of top-level domains that were early adopters of DNSSEC. The operational experience ICANN gained in operating ITAR also helped inform the roll-out of the signed DNS root zone.

The expected date for existing listings to be removed is 18 November 2010, with the service fully retired in January 2011. These dates are subject to adjustment based on operational requirements or community feedback.