A Method for Domain Name Data Acquisition Based on Zone Transfer

Abstract

The domain name system is an important infrastructure of the Internet. In order to effectively prevent the management and technical risks faced by the domain name system, there is an urgent need to obtain relatively complete Internet domain name data to provide basic data support. However, due to a series of restrictive factors such as non-enumerable domain name space, scattered domain name data storage, and restricted access to registry resources, the acquisition of Internet domain name data has become a challenge. We propose a domain name acquisition method based on zone transfer: the authoritative DNS master name server and slave name server usually maintain the function of the entire domain based on the same zone file. We try to find every authoritative domain name server that provides domain name services. The zone transfer obtains the domain name data information of the corresponding domain. We explored the way to implement the method and conducted experimental evaluation. The method has shortcomings in terms of effectiveness and ability, but a considerable amount of domain name data can be obtained to support the construction of a mapping database between global domain names and IP addresses.