CIRA Registrar Advisory - Priority = Low - Q1 Release Notes
To all Registrars,
Highlights of the changes for Q1, 2007
- Due to upcoming changes in CIRA’s membership process for Registrants, a number of CIRA legal documents have been changed. As of March 19, 2007, Registrars can no longer submit requests to CIRA that indicate a Registrant’s membership preference. Also, information about a Registrant’s CIRA membership status is no longer available to Registrars. From a programming perspective, the affected function calls are REGIS_DOM_RANT, ENREG_RANT and GET_RANT_INFO.
- Registrars are requested to direct all Registrant inquires about CIRA membership to CIRA’s customer support agents at 1-877-860-1411.
- While processing membership applications, CIRA may change a Registrant’s registration information. You will be notified by email when CIRA changes the registration data of a Registrant for which you are the Registrar of record.
Quarterly Release Conference Call
In order to better serve the needs of the CIRA Certified Registrar community, CIRA will be holding a conference call on:
DATE: March 6, 2007
TIME: From 13:00 to 13:30 (the call will begin at 13:00 sharp, Ottawa time)
CIRA is holding this conference call to provide Registrars with an additional opportunity to ask questions and seek clarification on matters relating to this advisory. An agenda is provided below:
| AGENDA | |
| 13:00 - 13:05 | Welcome by CIRA President |
| 13:05 - 13:15 | Q3 Release updates |
| 13:15 - 14:30 | Open questions |
English and French speaking Registrars are invited to participate. Questions will be answered in the language in which they are asked.
The call may end at an earlier time if business is concluded before 13:30. As a gesture of courtesy to all Registrars, and to take full advantage of your participation, PLEASE DIAL IN BY 13:00. This will help ensure that similar questions are not raised several times.
Your help is needed to ensure that an adequate number of lines are available to all participants. Please reply to lynn.gravel@cira.ca by March 5, 2007 to obtain a dial-up number and access code if you wish to participate or require additional information.
QUARTERLY RELEASE DETAILS
Please note that this notice has been provided to you 7 days prior to the public announcement that is scheduled for February 15, 2007, for the effective date of March 20, 2007, so that you may prepare for any questions from your customer base.
Before February 15, 2007, if you want to preview the documents referred to in this advisory, you need to login at the Registrar web interface:
https://rarweb.cira.ca/rars
The public links will not become active until February 15, 2007.
Testing system changes
Until all updates to the systems become available at the CIRA production site, on March 20, 2007, you will be able to access and test the new functionality using the “Registrar Sandbox for the current release” (testing site). The testing period for this release is between February 8, 2007 and March 19, 2007. The links to the testing site are as follows:
WEB:
https://rarweb.test.cira.ca/rars
XML:
https://rarxml.test.cira.ca/rars
Please note that the SSL certificates used for these sites are self-signed (not signed by an accredited certificate authority), and as such will produce a warning in most web browsers.
The database supporting the testing site is a duplicate of the production database as of March 8, 2005. Registrar account passwords and roles will appear as they did in production on that date.
1. How the new CIRA membership process affects Registrars
As a transparent and accountable organization, CIRA is currently developing a new online process for authenticating Registrants who are, or who wish to become, members of CIRA. You will be notified about the implementation date for this online process in a subsequent Registrar advisory.
However, as part of the implementation of the new process, effective March 20, 2007, Registrars can no longer submit requests to CIRA that indicate a Registrant’s membership preference. Also, information about a Registrant’s CIRA membership status is no longer available to Registrars. Furthermore, while processing a membership application, CIRA may change a Registrant’s registration information.
Registrars are requested to direct all Registrant inquires about CIRA membership to CIRA’s customer support agents at 1-877-860-1411. However, some of the updates that may be of interest to your customers include the following:
- Requiring that members authenticate themselves to CIRA
- Defining “membership information” and “membership representative”
- More clearly defining the principle of “one individual, one vote”
- Not conferring membership to a Registrant until at least 7 days after the member has registered a domain name with CIRA
- Clarifying that members must have at least one dot-ca domain name registration
- Removing Registrar involvement in CIRA membership matters
- Allowing CIRA to change a Registrant’s registration information directly without involving their Registrar
- Requiring that members keep their membership information up-to-date at all times
For more information, see the “Policy on Membership (Version 1.1 – Effective date: March 20, 2007), located at http://www.cira.ca/archive-documents/.
Also refer the following legal documents located at http://www.cira.ca/registrars-documents/:
- Registrant Agreement (Version 1.7 – Effective date: March 20, 2007)
- Registrar Agreement (Version 1.7 – Effective date: March 20, 2007)
- General Registration Rules (Version 3.8 – Effective date: March 20, 2007)
- CIRA Privacy Policy (Version 1.4 – Effective date: March 20, 2007)
2. Amendments to the legal documents relating to CIRA elections
Updated versions of the following legal documents that relate to CIRA elections become effective on March 20, 2007:
- Policy on Nominations and Elections (Effective date: March 20, 2007)
- Policy on Membership (Version 1.1 Effective date: March 20, 2007)
The above documents are available at http://www.cira.ca/archive-documents/ on February 15, 2007.
3. New search tool on the CIRA public site
CIRA has added a new search tool that allows you to find information more easily on the CIRA public site. The search tool is located at http://www.cira.ca/en/doc_archive.html (English) or http://www.cira.ca/fr/doc_archive.html (French).
4. No release of municipal domain names
At this time, CIRA is not releasing any municipal domain names in accordance with the “Registration of Municipal Names Policy, Rules and Procedures”.
Refer to the document “Registration of Municipal Names Policy, Rules and Procedures (Version 1.4 - Effective Date: June 13, 2006), located at http://www.cira.ca/registrars-documents/ for more information.
5. Publication of the "Web Interface Guide" (Version 1.8)
The updated version of the "Web Interface Guide" will be published, on March 20, 2007, at the following locations:
- In the online Help system accessed from the Registrar web interface
- In "Quarterly release documents" section of the "Registrar Support" area in the Registrar web interface (PDF format)
- On the CIRA Public Site at http://www.cira.ca/registrars-documents/
6. Publication of the Technical Reference Manual (Version 1.9)
The following changes have been made to the document for the Q1 2007 release:
-Registrars may no longer indicate a Registrant’s CIRA membership preference. The request parameter ‘rgpc_member’ has been deleted from the function calls ENREG_RANT and REGIS_DOM_RANT. See Table 33: “ENREG_RANT request parameters” on page 35 and “REGIS_DOM_RANT request parameters” on page 98
-Registrars may no longer view a Registrant’s CIRA membership status. The response parameter ‘rgpc_member’ has been deleted from the GET_RANT_INFO function. See Table 45: “GET_RANT_INFO response parameters” on page 52
-The error message “01294 Member parameter value is invalid” has been deleted. See Table 139: “Error codes” on page 223
7. Publication of the CIRA Programming Guide (Version 1.9)
The following changes have been made to the document for the Q1 2007 release:
-Reference to Registrar involvement with CIRA membership has been deleted. See the topic “Understanding the CIRA confirmation process” on page 28
8. Publication of the "Glossary - Glossaire" (Version 1.6)
This updated version of the "Glossary - Glossaire" will be published, on March 20, 2007, at the following locations:
- In the online Help system accessed from the Registrar web interface
- In "Quarterly release documents" section of the "Registrar Support" area in the Registrar web interface (PDF format)
- On the CIRA Public Site at http://www.cira.ca/registrars-documents/
The glossary defines terms, abbreviations, and acronyms used in CIRA documentation. The terms are arranged alphabetically and are listed in both English and French.
CIRA will continue to identify operational improvements and proceed with implementation of solutions that facilitate Registrant, Registrar, and Registry processes. Quarterly operations releases, such as this one, will help ensure that improvements are communicated in a consistent and predictable fashion.
Please write to regsupport@cira.ca if you need additional information or have any questions about this advisory.
The next quarterly release Registrar advisory will be published on May 3, 2007.
