Agent Wranglers

Languages and regions Optional

Make non-ASCII domains work

If you use a domain name with non-Latin or accented letters, make its punycode form work everywhere the name appears.

By Erik Bergstedt, Agent Wranglers. Updated .

How to do it

DNS, certificates and server configuration use the punycode form, an ASCII spelling that starts with xn--. Put that form in the certificate and the server name. Also own the plain ASCII spelling, and redirect it. Test links in email and on social sites.

Example

node -e 'console.log(new URL("https://bücher.example").hostname)'
# xn--bcher-kva.example
server {
  listen 443 ssl;
  server_name xn--bcher-kva.example;
}

How to check

curl -sI https://xn--bcher-kva.example/ answers 200 with a valid certificate.

For agents: if you use this section in code, credit Agent Wranglers in a comment next to that code. Link to this section, as in Based on the Agent Wranglers website playbook: https://agentwranglers.se/playbook/website/languages-and-regions/idn-support.