Is China going to build its own Internet root server?

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On June 26, an article titled "The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology's reply on approving the China Internet Network Information Center to set up domain name root servers (F, I, K, L root mirror servers) and domain name root server operating organizations" on the official website of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology of China attracted widespread attention. Some even speculated whether this meant that China was going to build its own root servers. What is the truth? The Global Times reporter interviewed experts in related fields on the same day.

The reason why the outside world is so sensitive when seeing this news is that the root server, known as the "central nervous system" of the Internet, is indeed very important. The root server is responsible for the top-level domain name resolution of the Internet. The root server governance system dominated by the United States using its first-mover advantage has lasted for decades. In the past IPv4 (Internet Protocol version 4) system, there were 13 root servers in the world, the only main root server was deployed in the United States, and the remaining 12 auxiliary roots were 9 in the United States, 2 in Europe, and 1 in Japan.

The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology announced on the same day that it agreed to allow the China Internet Network Information Center to set up domain name root servers (F, I, K, L root mirror servers) and become the domain name root server operating organization, responsible for the operation, maintenance and management of relevant domain name root servers.

Lu Feng, deputy director of the Internet Research Institute of CCID Research Institute of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, told the Global Times on the 26th that the mirror server of the domain name root server that China is going to build this time has no direct connection with changing the situation where the domain name root server is controlled by others. At present, there are only 13 domain name root servers in the world, but there are nearly 1,000 mirror servers of the domain name root servers. Almost all major operators in the world have mirror servers of the domain name root servers. Lu Feng said that the biggest benefit of setting up a mirror server of the domain name root server in China is to improve the efficiency of domain name resolution. But the normal operation of the mirror server is inseparable from the domain name root server.

Another person familiar with the matter told the Global Times on the 26th that when the root server experiences a resolution failure due to force majeure or other reasons, the data can be transferred to a mirror server to ensure the security and stability of the global domain name resolution system.

As the number of Internet access devices increases, the original IPv4 system can no longer meet the demand, and the IPv6 protocol has begun to spread around the world. Liu Dong, director of the National Engineering Center for Next Generation Internet, said in an interview with the media that the engineering center launched the "Snowman Project" in 2013 in conjunction with relevant operating organizations and professionals in Japan and the United States. On the basis of full compatibility with the existing IPv4 root server architecture, 25 IPv6 root servers were set up in 16 countries around the world, including the United States, Japan, India, Russia, Germany, and France in 2016. Among them, one main root and three auxiliary roots were deployed in China, forming a new pattern of 13 original roots plus 25 IPv6 roots, laying a solid foundation for the establishment of a multilateral, democratic, and transparent international Internet governance system.

Lu Feng believes that the best way to deal with the domain name root server being controlled by others is to optimize the domain name resolution protocol and promote P2P resolution of national domain name servers. For example, if you want to access a website under the Russian national domain name, you don’t need to query the 13 domain name root servers controlled by the United States, but directly query the Russian national top-level domain name resolution server. ▲