Resources for RDAP Implementers
On 27 February 2019, the ICANN org issued a notification to gTLD registries and registrars of the requirement to implement an RDAP service by 26 August 2019, including a recommendation that implementation occur according to the February-2019 gTLD RDAP Profile.
RDAP enables users to access current registration data and was created as an eventual replacement for the WHOIS protocol. RDAP was developed by the technical community in the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). RDAP runs on top of HTTP(S); the protocol on which the web runs.
The RDAP standard is described in IETF RFCs 7480 - 7484, and 8056, available here.
The RDAP RFCs are similar to a menu of functionalities. They describe how certain sets of functionalities work, but do not define which should be included in a given implementation. The RFCs leave those defining decisions to implementers or to those that set requirements on implementers. In the gTLD space, there are contractual and policy requirements that registries and registrars have to abide by. One or more documents are needed in order to map those contractual and policy requirements, as well as define which functionalities from the RDAP RFCs should be included. These documents collectively are called the gTLD RDAP profile.
The ICANN organization knows of the following RDAP server open-source projects that may be available for registries and registrars to use, should they decide not to code their own implementation:
The ICANN organization also knows of the following RDAP server conformance verification tools that may be available for registries and registrars to verify their implementations:
- Viagenie's RDAP Server Conformance Testing Tool, please contact support@viagenie.ca to obtain access.
- CentralNic (under development)
(*Please note that inclusion of the above links does not imply ICANN's endorsement nor any guarantee of compliance with applicable requirements. Implementers should do their own research and contact the external sites for answers to questions regarding their content.)
ICANN's RDAP conformance tool
On February 2022, the ICANN organization published the RDAP conformance tool as a stand-alone, open source tool that can be used to verify if an RDAP server implementation is conformant with the RDAP standards developed by the IETF and optionally, the gTLD RDAP profile.
- Offered for free, under the Apache License version 2.0.
- Developed in Java 11.
- Executable JAR file runs in a command line interpreter.
- Tool and documentation available here.
RDAP for gTLD Registries and Registrars Webinar 11 April 2019
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Presentation [PDF, 584 KB]
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- Audio Recording Arabic [MP3, 17.6 MB], Audio Recording Chinese [MP3, 9.6 MB], Audio Recording English [MP3, 17.7 MB], Audio Recording French [MP3, 17.6 MB], Audio Recording Russian [MP3, 17.6 MB], Audio Recording Spanish [MP3, 17.6 MB]
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- Audio Recording Arabic [MP3, 25.6 MB], Audio Recording Chinese [MP3, 31.2 MB], Audio Recording English [MP3, 26.0 MB], Audio Recording French [MP3, 26.0 MB], Audio Recording Russian [MP3, 25.6 MB], Audio Recording Spanish [MP3, 25.9 MB]
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Contact Global Support with questions related to RDAP.