<abstract>This specification defines an XMPP protocol extension for sending DNS queries and getting DNS responses over XML streams. Each DNS query-response pair is mapped
<remark>Accepted by vote of Council on 2019-03-13.</remark>
</revision>
<revision>
<version>0.0.1</version>
<date>2019-03-11</date>
<initials>tjb</initials>
<remark><p>First draft.</p></remark>
</revision>
</header>
<section1topic='Introduction'anchor='intro'>
<p>This document defines a specific protocol, DNS over XMPP (DoX), for
sending DNS &rfc1035; queries and getting DNS responses over &xmppcore; (and therefore TLS &rfc8446; security for integrity and confidentiality.</p>
<p>The integration with XMPP provides a transport suitable for both
existing DNS clients and native XMPP applications seeking access to
the DNS.</p>
<p>This protocol is almost identical in scope to DNS Queries over HTTPS (DoH) &rfc8484;</p>
</section1>
<section1topic='Requirements'anchor='reqs'>
<p>This specification addresses the following requirements:</p>
<olstart='1'>
<li>Sending a DNS query.</li>
<li>Responding with a DNS response.</li>
</ol>
</section1>
<section1topic='Protocol'anchor='protocol'>
<p>The DoX protocol is extremely simple:</p>
<ol>
<li>The requesting entity (requestor) sends an IQ-get containing a <dns/> element qualified by the 'urn:xmpp:dox:0' namespace, which contains the DNS query.</li>
<li>The resolving entity (resolver) returns either an IQ-result containing a <dns/> element qualified by the 'urn:xmpp:dox:0' namespace, which contains the DNS response (if it supports the namespace) or an IQ-error (if it does not).</li>
<li>In both the query and response, the content of the <dns/> element is the DNS on-the-wire format as defined in &rfc1035;. The body MUST be encoded with base64 &rfc4648;. Padding characters for base64 MUST NOT be included.</li>
</ol>
</section1>
<section1topic='Use Cases'anchor='usecases'>
<p>Sending a DNS query is done by sending an &IQ; get over the stream from the requestor to the resolver.</p>
<p>If an entity supports the DoX protocol, it MUST report that fact by including a service discovery feature of "urn:xmpp:dox:0" in response to a &xep0030; information request:</p>
<examplecaption="Service Discovery information request"><![CDATA[
<p>In order for an application to determine whether an entity supports this protocol, where possible it SHOULD use the dynamic, presence-based profile of service discovery defined in &xep0115;. However, if an application has not received entity capabilities information from an entity, it SHOULD use explicit service discovery instead.</p>
<p>Support could also be pre-arranged between parties by putting a resolver at a known JID, in which case the requestor can just start sending queries to the resolver</p>
<p>Some XMPP clients do not respond to IQ stanzas containing unsupported payloads. Although this is in violation of &xmppcore;, this behavior can result in disconnection of clients that are in fact actively connected to the server.</p>
<p>Running DNS over XMPP relies on the security of the underlying XMPP
transport, therefore all queries and responses MUST use TLS or equivalent connection security. This mitigates classic amplification attacks for UDP-
based DNS.</p>
<p>Session-level encryption has well-known weaknesses with respect to
traffic analysis, which might be particularly acute when dealing with
DNS queries. DoX resolvers can also add DNS padding
&rfc7830; if the DoX requestor requests it in the DNS query. An
experimental effort to offer guidance on choosing the padding length
can be found in &rfc8467;.</p>
<p>The TLS connection provides transport security for the interaction
between the DoX resolver and requestor, but it does not provide the
response integrity of DNS data provided by DNSSEC. DNSSEC and DoX
are independent and fully compatible protocols, each solving
different problems. The use of one does not diminish the need nor
the usefulness of the other. It is the choice of a requestor to either
perform full DNSSEC validation of answers or to trust the DoX resolver
to do DNSSEC validation and inspect the AD (Authentic Data) bit in
the returned message to determine whether an answer was authentic or
not.</p>
<p>In the absence of DNSSEC information, a DoX resolver can give a requestor
invalid data in response to a DNS query. A DoX capable requestor MUST discard any responses not specifically requested, this prohibition does not guarantee protection against invalid data, but it does reduce the risk.</p>
<p>If a server receives a dns request directed to a full JID &LOCALFULL; associated with a registered account but there is no connected resource matching the 'to' address, <cite>RFC 6120</cite> requires it to reply with a &unavailable; error and set the 'from' address of the IQ-error to the full JID provided in the 'to' address of the dns request. If a connected resource receives a dns request but it does not want to reveal its network availability to the sender for any reason (e.g., because the sender is not authorized to know the connected resource's availability), then it too MUST reply with a &unavailable; error. This consistency between the server response and the resolver response helps to prevent presence leaks.</p>