JP Domain Name

This website dan.tokyo.jp is a JP domain name registered through jprs.jp. The Japan Registry Service Co., LTd (JPRS) was established on 2000.12.26 and manages all .jp country codes. The reason I used a JP domain name was because of the eligibility criteria which require an individual to have a permanent address in Japan. That exclusivity, Japanese designation, and address verification led me to use a JP domain name. I wanted to talk about my experience in Japan and it seemed appropriate to have a JP country code as it made it more “official”. I later discovered that I can make it more specific by adding a <Prefecture label>.JP to create dan.tokyo.jp.

Steps to get a JP Domain Name

  1. I checked the availability of my domain at jprs.jp/registration.

  2. I followed instructions at jprs.jp/registration/flow which were all in Japanese about steps for registering a JP domain name.

  3. That linked me to a list of designated operators that handle JP domain names. I decided to register directly with the Japan Registry Services Co., Ltd. designated company JPDirect.

  4. I opted to pay for ドメイン名登録 (Domain Registration) for 1 year and サーバー証明書発行 (Server Certificate Issuance). I wanted to have HTTPS and I did not consider using Let's Encrypt. Maybe for the renewal, I might relook at that.

  5. This later prompted me to create a Key and CSR for the website. The instructions of JPRS サーバー証明書発⾏サービス were pretty great and I just followed through. This included creating a Key and CSR and filling it out appropriately. 

    
openssl genrsa -out servername.key 2048
openssl req -new -key servername.key -out server.csr -sha256
openssl req -noout -text -in server.csr

  6. I pasted the CSR generated into the application screen to apply for a server certificate. This total set me back ¥3,650 for the domain name and ¥10,900 for the certificate.

  7. Then I got an email that my server certificate is ready!

  8. After all that, now I got a Japanese Domain Name and Server Certificate and can go about creating my website.

To AWS

It seemed like they verified my address by my Billing Information if I had to guess. Later I set up an account on AWS to host my website. I can talk more about that in another blog post.