What is Punycode or the whole truth about Cyrillic domains. Print

Punycode (pronounced "punicode" or "punycode") is a standardized method for converting sequences of Unicode characters (IDNs) into so-called ACE sequences, which consist only of alphanumeric characters, as allowed in domain names.

Example:

Let's say you registered a domain in Russian: moydomain.uz. Then this domain name in various views will look like this:

IDN (Unicode): mydomain.uz

Punycode (ACE): xn--d1acklchcc.xn--g1ax

The work process will be as follows. The client requests the domain moydomain.uz (enters the name in the address bar of the browser). This name is converted into a sequence of Punycode characters: xn--d1acklchcc.xn--g1ax   Next, a request to resolve the name xn--d1acklchcc.xn--g1ax   into an IP address is sent to the appropriate DNS server and the DNS server returns a response. The conversion is necessary because not all existing DNS servers support handling domain names in IDN format. Thus, the site can be accessed using either the IDN name or Punycode directly.