IANA

networking

Stands for: Internet Assigned Numbers Authority

The function that manages global IP, port, and protocol-number assignments.

Internet Assigned Numbers Authority maintains the registries of IP address blocks, port numbers, protocol parameters, and the DNS root zone, and publishes the time-zone database that most systems rely on.

IANA operates the registries the internet's protocols point at: port numbers, protocol identifiers, media types, DNS root data and the top-level address blocks handed to regional registries. It is the authoritative list-keeper rather than a policymaker.

Its importance is that it makes shared meaning possible. A protocol field that says 6 means TCP because a registry says so, and a media type means the same thing to two implementations that have never met for the same reason. The stewardship transition in 2016, moving IANA functions out from under US government contract, was contested precisely because a neutral registry is infrastructure, and whoever holds it holds something quietly load-bearing.

Also known as: iana

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