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TON DNS is a service for translating human-readable domain names (such as example.ton or mysite.temp.ton) into TON smart contract addresses, ADNL addresses used by services on the TON Network, and other network entities.

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What TON DNS resolves

TON DNS records can point to several types of addresses:
  • Wallet addresses: on-chain smart contract addresses stored under the wallet category, allowing users to send cryptocurrency directly to a human-readable domain name instead of a raw address.
  • ADNL addresses: used to locate TON Sites running on the TON Network.
  • TON Storage Bag IDs: identifiers for files and data stored via TON Storage.
  • Next resolver references: delegation of subdomains to another DNS smart contract.
  • Text records: arbitrary UTF-8 text associated with a domain name.

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Implementation

TON DNS is built as a tree of DNS smart contracts. The root contract lives on the masterchain; its address is stored in blockchain configuration parameter #4. .ton is the only first-level domain. Each .ton domain is an NFT following the TEP-0081 standard: the resolver contract acts as an NFT collection and each registered domain is an NFT item, making domains transferable through any NFT-compatible wallet or marketplace. The .t.me namespace operates as a delegated sub-resolver on the same infrastructure, implementing the same dnsresolve interface and supporting the same record types as .ton domains. Every DNS smart contract exposes a dnsresolve get-method: 
(int, cell) dnsresolve(slice subdomain, int category)
subdomain is the portion of the domain name remaining to be resolved. category is the SHA-256 hash of the record category name, or 0 to retrieve all records. The method returns the number of bits consumed and a cell containing the DNS record. If fewer bits were consumed than the full subdomain length, the returned cell is a dns_next_resolver pointing to the contract that handles the remainder.

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DNS record types

DNS record values are described by TL-B schemas. The following record types are defined:
  • dns_adnl_address: stores a 256-bit ADNL address for network services such as TON Sites. An optional protocol list describes supported protocols. 
    dns_adnl_address#ad01 adnl_addr:bits256 flags:(## 8) { flags <= 1 }
  proto_list:flags . 0?ProtoList = DNSRecord;
  • dns_smc_address: stores any smart contract address on the TON Blockchain, including wallets. An optional capability list describes the capabilities of the contract. Under the standard wallet category, this record enables sending funds to a domain name. 
    dns_smc_address#9fd3 smc_addr:MsgAddressInt flags:(## 8) { flags <= 1 }
  cap_list:flags . 0?SmcCapList = DNSRecord;
  • dns_next_resolver: delegates resolution of subdomains to another DNS smart contract at the specified address. 
    dns_next_resolver#ba93 resolver:MsgAddressInt = DNSRecord;
  • dns_storage_address: stores a 256-bit TON Storage Bag ID, allowing domain names to be assigned to files stored via TON Storage. 
    dns_storage_address#7473 bag_id:bits256 = DNSRecord;
  • dns_text: stores arbitrary UTF-8 text using the Text chunked encoding defined in the block layout specification. 
    dns_text#1eda _:Text = DNSRecord;

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Record categories

When querying a DNS contract, the caller specifies a category to select which record type to retrieve. Categories are identified by the SHA-256 hash of a UTF-8 category name string. The standard categories defined by TEP-0081 are:
Category namePurpose
walletDefault wallet address (dns_smc_address)
siteTON Site ADNL address (dns_adnl_address)
dns_next_resolverSubdomain delegation (dns_next_resolver)
storageTON Storage Bag ID (dns_storage_address)
Passing category 0 retrieves all records stored for the domain.

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Domain lifecycle

Registered domains must be renewed annually by sending 0.015 TON to the domain contract. There is no grace period: once a domain has gone more than one year without renewal, anyone can trigger its release by calling dns_balance_release on the contract with a minimum payment. The domain then re-enters auction for one week, with the caller as the initial bidder.

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Ecosystem integration

TON domain names such as .ton domains are recognized by wallet applications and explorers in the TON ecosystem. Users can send cryptocurrency to a TON DNS domain name instead of copying a 256-bit account identifier. TON DNS also integrates with other TON services:
  • TON Sites: a dns_adnl_address record pointing to an ADNL address gives a site a human-readable .ton domain.
  • TON Storage: a dns_storage_address record maps a domain name to a Bag ID, making stored files addressable by name.
  • TON Proxy: resolves .ton domains to ADNL addresses before routing HTTP traffic to the target site.