DNS RP Records Explained
DNS RP (Responsible Person) records identify the person or entity responsible for a particular domain name. They provide a way to associate contact information with DNS zones or hostnames, complementing the contact information found in SOA records.
What is an RP record?
An RP record contains two domain name fields. The first is a mailbox domain name that specifies the email address of the responsible person, with the "@" symbol replaced by a dot. The second is a domain name that points to a TXT record containing additional information about the contact.
For example, an RP record might specify "admin.example.com" as the mailbox (representing admin@example.com) and "contact.example.com" as the TXT reference domain. The TXT record at that domain could contain a phone number, physical address, or other contact details.
How do RP records work?
RP records are defined in RFC 1183 and provide a structured way to publish contact information in DNS. When someone needs to find the responsible person for a particular domain or host, they can query for the RP record and then optionally look up the associated TXT record for additional details.
While SOA records include a contact email for the zone administrator, RP records allow you to specify different responsible persons for different hostnames within the same zone. This is particularly useful for large organizations where different teams manage different services.
If no TXT record reference is needed, the second field can be set to "." (the root domain), indicating there is no additional text information available.
Example
Here's what an RP record looks like for the domain example.com: